Something good

I watched Forever Young on BBC 4 on Friday night. Peter Noone of Herman's Hermits was featured. He revealed that he was only 15 when they had the hit single 'I'm into Something Good'. The summer I left my junior school we were all invited to the summer fair at our new secondary school, Adelphi in Salford. The school building is now part of the University of Salford. I think it's their media department. Herman's Hermits were booked to play in the gym and they were fantastic. We were smitten with Peter Noone's boyish good looks! Within a month I was listening to 'I'm into Something Good' on Radio Luxembourg. I think they were from North Manchester. Some years later one of my friends claimed to have been 'sacked' from the band just before their successful first hit.
It's still a song that brings a smile to my face, infectiously optimistic, full of life's promise.

Reggae got soul

BBC 4 has been doing some fantastic reggae related programmes over the last couple of weeks including Reggae Britannia.
My Boy Lollipop was probably my introduction to Jamaican music - we all thought Millie was wonderful, and she wasn't much older than us. Then came the skinhead/ska era, and Desmond Dekker's The Israelites in 1969. I still have an old ex-jukebox copy of a Prince Buster single. Like soul and Tamla Motown it was part of my musical background, but through my later teens I became a bit of a hippy and took to bands like Love, Traffic, Derek and the Dominoes, Captain Beefheart and others too numerous to mention. By 1973, at the age of 19, I was part of a rock n roll revival band in Manchester, and my musical horizons were expanding once more. My friend Tony Wilson ( later of So it Goes and Factory Records fame)told me to go and see a band called the Wailers if I got the chance - he had seen them in London in the late summer of '73. I was about to start an English degree at Leeds University, and as luck would have it, the Wailers were booked to play at Leeds Polytechnic early in the term.
I am so pleased that I saw them at that Catch a Fire moment. Their later success was fantastic for them, but there was something very special about them at that time.
I never got the chance to see them again. Some years later when I lived in Morocco there were always rumours of Bob Marley playing a concert there. Sadly it never happened, and by the time I came back to England he had passed away. He was a truly international artist - Bob Marley and Manchester United were topics of conversation wherever I went in Morocco!
Watching Reggae Britannia reminded me of some of the great musicians I saw in those few years - Culture (2 7's Clash, not Club), Burning Spear (at the Hacienda believe it or not), the Cimarons, Steel Pulse, Aswad,possibly Big Youth and/or U Roy - some of it gets a bit hazy as you might imagine.
I have just heard a bit of Bob Marley's last ever concert on the radio - a number one album in the States at the moment apparently.
Lively up yourself!

Box of Rain and the Grateful Dead

Listening to Bob Harris' radio programme on Friday night, I had fallen asleep to the sound of the wind and rain outside. Wild weather continues this week, though I have just seen the glimmering of a faint rainbow across the valley outside. I woke from my half conscious state to hear him play the Dead's Box of Rain. What a wonderful sound. I was transported back to other half conscious times I'd heard that lovely blend of psychedelic country folk. In fact much of my favourite music now is of that genre - Vetiver and Devendra Banhart come immediately to mind. I know I saw the Grateful Dead twice, but I'm not sure I was really concentrating. Bickershaw Festival in May 1972 was the first time. More rain than would fill a box there. I was working in On the 8th Day's Joe's Cafe. We were pitched between the stage and Caroline Coon's Release tent. A great spot. We were constantly busy serving rice and veg, muesli and hot drinks. There was an element of a disaster area about the site, though it was an amazing festival. I have clear memories of Dr John, Hawkwind and Captain Beefheart - and of course the man who did a high dive into a tub of water!. If the Dead's set really lasted as long as they say on the websites, I probably did a couple of shifts and slept a few hours during the time they were on.
So many friends were Dead heads back in the day . I remember someone's motorbike petrol tank painted with the American Beauty album cover design.
In September 1974, whilst I was at Leeds university, and newly married for the first time, a group of us went to Ally Pally for one of the three nights of concerts. Again, it's a bit of a blur. I do remember the panic on the M6 on the outskirts of Manchester. The conversation had turned to who actually had the tickets in their possession - and of course they had been left at home. We still made it to the concert. Happy days.