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| No, I'm playing bass |
I am Some Awe
There it is: The Revelation.
For the past 10 years, I have maintained this notional mystique, and having now written and published my memoir, I've considered it a good time to add a personal name to the appellation.
In writing a music blog for those 10 years, it's not surprising that music features in the memoir, this including a few former SDAA reviews, repurposed to further reflect on how music shapes who I was and am.
The following is one of the music-related vignettes, a taster for those interested in pursuing further:
First Time, Second Time Around
There are a number of musicians I never got to see in their prime but have since in the latter phase or twilight of their careers. These are James Taylor, Yusuf Islam (Cat Stevens), The Isley Brothers, Arthur Lee’s Love, Wishbone Ash (both ongoing versions), Crosby, Stills and Nash, Roy Harper, John Etheridge solo and in a modern Soft Machine line-up, Tír na nÓg (they were at Weeley but I’m sure I was sleeping at the time), Bert Jansch with John Renbourn, Johnny Winter, Albert Lee, Peter Green, Paul Rogers, The Doobie Brothers, Michael Chapman, Stan Webb, and Neil Young. I will mention the Freddie Mercury Memorial Concert again where I saw David Bowie and Elton John. I also got to see Conway Twitty at the Siskiu State Fair (Yreka) in 1992, taking my 12-year-old daughter, and I certainly had a great time. There are a further few who deserve to be mentioned though ‘removed’ from their original bands, like Ginger Baker with his Jazz Confusion, and Robin Williamson without any of the other Incredible String Band. In other fringe contexts I saw Roger Daltrey and Gary Brooker. I did most recently from these subsidiary categories see The Groundhogs, although the only remaining original member was drummer Carl Stocks so I don’t think this counts, as incendiary as they were then. I haven’t included Gene Simmons singing the American national anthem at the Wembley NFL Vikings/Steelers game in 2013, or any performers I saw in their prime but also subsequently.
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| The memoir I might have imagined writing |
I only got weepily emotional seeing CS&N, me never a singalong kinda guy, but trying with opening numbers Carry On and Questions I did choke, hit by a passing freight train of nostalgia. None of the later-in-life performances were ever naff, often seeming as fresh as ever – I felt then and still do now that James Taylor’s vocal matures with age – and/or bands often have session players/singers bolstering sounds to verisimilitudes of the past, this often including their children all grown up and additions to the groups. Peter Green played with less pace than in his heyday but was nonetheless mesmerising, and Johnny Winter was similar – another fine guitarist playing with him to add occasional background oomph – though Johnny’s slide could still glide. The only one who was at times hard to take in a new incarnation was Stan Webb, formerly of Chicken Shack, his set existential and chaotic at times – though also sublime, especially his distinctive vocal – and if he ever had been PC in inclination this was clearly anathema to him now. One other more comic indication of a past catching up was Arthur Lee and Love playing the Phoenix at Exeter, and when Lee strutted up to the mic to begin the gig with that enthusiastic, shouted clichéd line (or similar) of ‘Hey, how’s it going….’ he turned to the bass player and you could just hear him asking ‘…where are we?’
You can get the memoir here.
