Innholdsfortegnelse for April 2019 i UNCUT

IF there’s a prevailing theme to this latest issue of Uncut, it’s one of change. Our cover star is John Lennon, whose momentous 1969 is documented here by Peter Watts – with a little help from assorted eyewitnesses. You could argue that every year during the 1960s was similarly dramatic for the Beatle – packed with incident, creative leaps and new adventures – but even by those dizzying standards, 1969 found Lennon at a pivotal point in his life, ready to embrace new possibilities. The Beatles are coming to an end and what is he to do next...? Welcome, then, to a bewildering 12 months that took in four albums, three concerts, two bed-ins and a marriage. Join us for free jazz in Cambridge, rock’n’roll in Toronto and Peace And…

“The minute we started The Go - Betweens, I wanted to be a pop star. We were dreamers, so everything was open” AS befits a songwriter who once lived in “The House That Jack Kerouac Built” and named his band after a classic 20th-century novel, Robert Forster is talking to us while surrounded by books. “I need some more shelves, actually,” he says from his Brisbane home. “Books are good for your health. They’re relaxing, even when you’re just looking at them.” Forster is currently writing another book of his own, following the success of his 2016 memoir, Grant & I (about his life with Go-Betweens co-founder Grant McLennan). This one is fictional, though he is reluctant to a call it a novel. “I’m scared of that word, as I…

PSYCHEDELIC MANGO BADMINTON BANDIT, 2009 “ I am the voice of God” , declares a weedy voice  before the blistering chaos of opener “This Is How We Came” kicks in on Pond’s lo-fi debut, released after the dissolution of Mink Mussel Creek, the Perth prog outfit with Pond’s Nick Allbrook and Joe Ryan and Tame Impala’s Kevin Parker. Bong hits, Sabbath and Cream combine on a messy, deceptively pleasant record. 7/10 BEARD, WIVES, DENIM MODULAR, 2012 Pond get the flippers out for a snorkel around  their psychedelic reef on an album that takes in screwball glam (“Leisure Pony”), campfire teardrops (“Moreno’s Blend”), a tie-dyed Beatles/Oasis pastiche called “Dig Brother” and other widescreen antics. Between this and 2013’s Hobo Rocket , Pond prove they can turn their hand to…

Kurt Wagner “Christian metal may not be in our wheel house at present” How would you characterise the difference between FLOTUS and the new record? This… was the result of the things that began with FLOTUS musically, then adding new information that I had been gathering both musically and lyrically. In my own quiet way I do feel that this is a more strident record, at least lyrically. In fact, I was a bit concerned that it was a little too direct sometimes when referencing our current state of affairs culturally speaking. Times were and are still changing, and we’ve been profoundly changed as a result. The title track sounds like something that might appear on jazz label ECM. Do…

Ryan Adams (pictured) began the year by announcing three new albums over the course of 2019. Mid-April sees the first of these, Big Colors PAX-AM , co-produced with Don Was and Beatriz Artola. Recorded at Electric Lady, Capitol Studios and Adams’ own PAX-AM set-up, it features Bob Mould, Benmont Tench, John Mayer and The Section Quartet. One song, “Manchester”, pays tribute to the city that Adams says shaped his life: “It’s at the heart of all the things I love about music, from The Smiths, Joy Division, Oasis, New Order and the Stone Roses.” The second LP in the trilogy, Wednesdays , is still awaiting a release date, though Adams has revealed a guestlist of Emmylou Harris, Jason Isbell and Benmont Tench. Also…

Do you feel exposed by these songs or is their universality a shield? On a myopic level I feel exposed by them, yes.Just because something is universal doesn’t mean it hits softer or is kinder. I’d love to be able to fictionalise more; I tend to focus on personal experiences and admittedly I worry that I might get burnt out on that at some point unless I learn how to be protective of my experience, even if in a nuanced way. Maybe the next record will be the fiction one (probably not)! Who did you look to when learning to play guitar and who do you admire still? When I was learning to play, I listened to the classic shredders. Stevie Ray Vaughan was my favourite – those 13-gauge strings…

Disc 1: Supersnazz Tracks 1-11 + Bonus Tracks 12 Rockin’ Pneumonia And The Boogie Woogie Flu (Single) 13 The First One’s Free (Single) 14 Somethin’ Else (Single) 15 Laurie Did It (Single) Disc 2: Flamingo Tracks 1-10 + Bonus Tracks 11 Shakin’ All Over 12 That’ll Be The Day 13. Louie Louie 14. My Girl Josephine 15. Around And Around 16. Rockin’ Pneumonia And The Boogie Woogie Flu 17. Going Out Disc 3: Teenage Head Tracks 1-9 + Bonus Tracks 10. Scratch My Back 11. Carol 12. Rumble 13. Somethin’ Else 14. Walking The Dog 15. Going Out (Version 2)…

JAMES BOOKER At Onkel Pö’s Carnegie Hall, Hamburg 1976 JAZZLINE 8/10 Troubled New Orleans genius at his best Dr John famously described him as “the best black, gay, one-eyed junkie piano genius New Orleans has ever produced”, yet Booker left a meagre recorded legacy. A few early singles, sessions with the likes of Fats Domino and Smiley Lewis, a Joe Boyd-produced studio album – and then by 1983 he was dead at the age of 44. Arguably his best work is to be found on a series of posthumously released live albums recorded in the late 1970s on tour in Europe, where, like many African-American musicians before him, he found a more appreciative audience than at home. This set is a brilliant addition to his all-too-small catalogue. There’s a visceral,…

SHIRLEY COLLINS & DAVY GRAHAM Folk Roots, New Routes DECCA, 1964 Although earthy Collins and out-there, flighty Graham didn’t gel as people (“I had no interest in Eastern religions,” she told Uncut last year), their sole musical match-up still sounds pioneering. Without their takes on “Nottamun Town”, “Reynardine” and the like, folk and folk-rock would be very different. 9/10 SHIRLEY COLLINS The Power Of The True-Love Knot POLYDOR, 1968 The only vaguely psychedelic LP that Collins ever made, this was produced by Joe Boyd and featured The Incredible String Band on percussion, clapping and chanter. The most striking new element, however, was Collins’ Instrument, a cross between a banjo and a dulcimer, used to wonderful effect on the exotic “Bonnie Boy”. 8/10 SHIRLEY COLLINS Lodestar DOMINO,…

Weyes Blood unveils her fourth album, Titanic Rising , next time round, while Ryan Adams returns with Big Colors . We discover which outré styles These New Puritans have channeled on Inside The Rose , delve deep into Beth Gibbon’s take on Górecki’s Symphony No 3 and check out new ones from Foxygen ( Seeing Other People ) and La Luz’s Shana Cleveland, who’s making a solo detour with the space-folk of Night Of The Worm Moon . Emerging from climate-controlled archives are New Order’s Movement boxset and a deluxe version of Sparks’ No 1 In Heaven , while some of David Bowie’s fascinating late-’60s…

“TOWARDS the end of 1962 I came across Anne first at the Singers Club in The Pindar of Wakefield, then at The Iron Muse recording in Hampstead, where the celebrated pictures were taken, and then at a Centre 42 concert in Loughborough. The Edinburgh picture was about a year later at the recording of two LPs covering the entire folk scene. “I don’t remember exchanging any words with her at all through any of these occasions. I was just trying my best to photograph what was going on. None of the pictures were posed in any way. Looking back through thousands of my own pictures, I can see that really I was a portrait photographer, but of people who didn’t know I had my beady lens…

ORANGE JUICE YOU CAN’T HIDE YOUR LOVE FOREVER POLYDOR,1982 Major-label debut – included a re-recording of “Falling & Laughing”. “Consolation Prize” is Collins is at his cack-handed romantic best. ORANGE JUICE RIP IT UP POLYDOR, 1982 Released just months after their debut, but with drummer Steven Daly and James Kirk replaced respectively by Zeke Manyika and Malcolm Ross. Includes the titular hit single. ORANGE JUICE TEXAS FEVER POLYDOR, 1984 Ross and McClymont say goodbye after this EP. The dream of viable Scottish funk lives on with “Punch Drunk”. EDWYN COLLINS HOPE AND DESPAIR DEMON, 1989 EC is solo, in the wilderness. German backers invite him to record in Cologne with reggae legend Dennis Bovell on bass. “He’s a wandering minstrel in a badly cut suit,” he…

LENNON and Ono explained in contemporary interviews that they wanted to sell the idea of peace as if it were a product. John Kosh, who designed the “War Is Over” billboards, explains that this was like advertising, which explained the general aesthetic style of Lennon’s solo work. “I was a minimalist and the house style I set over the singles and albums and diaries and calendar was very black-and-white,” he says. “It was Franklin Gothic Condensed, very careful with the kerning. I was rebelling against the psychedelic style of the time because I couldn’t do it – but also because that wasn’t what John and Yoko were into. They wanted the simplicity of the message. My job was to make sure that if you went past on the bus, you…

“WHO could it be now?” sings Jenny Lewis, as she opens the door mid-interview. “Oh, the mailman! Fantastic. A signature? But of course!” If it wasn’t already apparent, Lewis is in a good place at the moment. Back in Los Angeles after a few years “bouncing between” California, New York and Nashville, she’s about to release her fourth solo album, the mature, immaculate On The Line. With an impressive catalogue steadily building – “It’s funny to think of it all chronologically,” Lewis says – it seems an apt moment to look back with the singer-songwriter over her work so far, with Rilo Kiley, solo and with Nice As Fuck. On the way, Lewis recalls tales of leaving $20,000 in a coffee shop, avoiding wild LA parties and recording with Elvis…

THIS May will see a glut of Humble Pie reissues from the team that recently oversaw the Small Faces remasters for Decca and Immediate. With Peter Frampton and Jerry Shirley as supervisory producers, alongside Immediate series producer Rob Caiger, both 1969’s As Safe As Yesterday Is and Town And Country have been remastered for vinyl and CD. “We’ve been correcting the sound so that it leaps out at you,” says Caiger. Veteran collector Phil Smee is responsible for the artwork, sourced from the original  Immediate archives. Fans can also expect a best-of album, as well as a bunch of live tracks from New York (originating from somewhere other than Humble Pie’s old staging post, the Fillmore) and an expanded edition of 2001’s…

SYLVIA REED: The album cover was inspired by a Hungarian photographer, Brassaï. It was a very moody, dark photograph of men in the street, it was called Big Albert’s Gang . We were big fans of his work, and the concept was to recreate it and use the techniques that were becoming very popular then, and overlay each one of the characters as Lou. SPENCER DRATE: I wanted to use outlined letters so the wall would come through. Lou was really affected by EE Cummings, and Cummings sometimes had poems running on, but with the first letter of each line in bold, so you could read it easily. So we did that – that was incredible, and that was Lou’s idea. Also, Lou had so many lyrics…

Written by: James Brown and Pee Wee Ellis Produced: James Brown Recorded: Vox Studios, LA, August 1968 Released: August 1968 Label: King Personnel: James Brown (lead vocal), Fred Wesley (trombone), Pee Wee Ellis (alto sax), Maceo Parker (tenor sax), St Clair Pinckney (baritone sax), Jimmy Nolen (electric guitar), Sweet Charles Sherrell (bass), Clyde Stubblefield (drums), children’s choir (vocals), Waymond Reed (trumpet), Richard “Kush” Griffith (trumpet) Highest chart position: UK -; US 10…

X-RAY Spex singer Poly Styrene realised something was seriously wrong when, alone in her hotel room after a gig in Doncaster in 1978, she saw a bright light in the sky. Not a star or a satellite, it moved towards her until it was hovering outside her window, seemingly probing her room as she watched transfixed. The light was so bright that she later told her husband Ady Bell that it singed her hair. “It was a shock to the system,” she said years later. “Some people don’t recover.” As Poly wrote in her diary: “I had an innate desire to be free” If Dayglo: The Poly Styrene Story is anything to go by, the former Marianne Elliott-Said was one of the lost ones. A collage of interviews, diaries and…

UNDER THE SILVER LAKE Director David Robert Mitchell Starring Andrew Garfield, Riley Keogh Opens March 15 Cert TBC 7/10 CAPERNAUM Directed by Nadine Labaki Starring Zain Al Rafeea, Yordanos Shiferaw Opens February 22 Cert 15 9/10 BURNING MEN Directed by Jeremy Wooding Starring Edward Hayter, Aki Omoshaybi Opens March 1 Cert TBC 6/10 EVERYBODY KNOWS Directed by Asghar Farhadi Starring Penélope Cruz, Javier Bardem Opens March 8 Cert TBC 7/10 PIERCING Directed by Nicolas Pesce Starring Christopher Abbott, Mia Wasikowska Opens February 15 Cert 18 8/10…

ARETHA FRANKLIN “Bridge Over Troubled Water” ATLANTIC, 1971 My sister handed me this single when I was about 12 or 13. She knew I was interested in learning how to sing with a bigger voice – I lived in a small house with nine people in it, a big family, so everyone could hear I was singing a lot! Giving me this was her saying, “Check this out, this is what good singing can be…” The place that Aretha sings from has influenced me since then. We’re very different people, and I don’t claim to have her style at all. But hearing her singing this song was pretty mind-blowing. RICKIE LEE JONES “Rainbow Sleeves” WARNER BROS, 1983 She was the first woman songwriter who I fully connected with. If you’re…

DRUGDEALER Raw Honey MEXICAN SUMMER Cracking album of melty MOR from Michael Collins’ modern-day Wrecking Crew, with winning vocal turns from Weyes Blood and  neo-cowboy crooner Dougie Poole. STEALING SHEEP Big Wows HEAVENLY Liverpool trio go pop on vivacious third album. Shades of The Sugarcubes, Metronomy and Tom Tom Club. FAT WHITE FAMILY Serfs Up! DOMINO Grot-rockers decamp to Sheffield to mainline a little of Earl Brutus’s electroglam boogie. Splashes of strings and sax a sign of creeping maturity. UNDERWORLD Coming Out Of Texas MIXCLOUD Quietly uploaded amid a burst of impressive new material, these semi-acoustic “desert demos” reveal the workings behind classic Underworld swooners such as “Blueski” and “8 Ball”. WHITE DENIM Side Effects CITY SLANG On their second album in six months, Austin’s finest are firmly back in…

POND Tasmania MARATHON ALBUM OF THE MONTH 8/10 Perth psych-pop underdogs’ deepest yet. By Piers Martin SOMETIMES the best discoveries are the ones that have been hiding in plain sight. If you’ve been paying close attention to the antics of Perth’s second most popular psychedelic rock outfit over the past few years, you’ll know that Pond have rapidly assembled an astonishing discography, full of beautiful, perceptive, unhinged pop, and that in an ideal world they would be straddling the globe as the accolades rain down. You’ll also be aware of their status as perennial underdogs, a bunch of daggy Aussie tearaways who look as if they’d sooner sell you crystal meth behind some outback biker bar than serenade you with exquisite songs about the repatriation of Aboriginal artefacts.…

FINN ANDREWS One Piece At A Time NETTWERK 7/10 Fine, self-questioning solo debut from Veils frontman One Piece At A Time is a soundtrack to a homecoming – Andrews, wearied of life and love in London, returned to his native Auckland to record this. Such journeys – especially journeys of such length – prompt reflection, and One Piece At A Time is Andrews’ most confessional work, the sound of a man figuring things out. He doesn’t arrive at any firm answers, but his working is elegant: “Love, What Can I Do?” is a thing of Blue Nile-ish wistful urgency, “One By The Venom” a gleefully demented list song reminiscent of Scott Walker, and “What Strange Things Lovers Do” a shrugging embrace of the Nick Cave comparisons. ANDREW MUELLER BLICK BASSY…

1 Because The End Is Really The Beginning 2 Birth Of Creation 3 Summon The Fire 4 Blood Of The Past 5 Super Zodiac 6 Astral Flying 7 Timewave Zero 8 Unity 9 The Universe Wakes Up Produced by: The Comet Is Coming Recorded at: Total Refreshment Centre, Dalston, London Personnel includes: Shabaka Hutchings aka King Shabaka (saxophones, bass clarinet), Dan Leavers aka Danalogue The Conqueror (keyboards), Max Hallett aka Betamax Killer (drums and electronics), Kate Tempest (vocals on “Blood Of The Past”)…

Conor Oberst & Phoebe Bridgers “In our differences we found a lot of fun stuff” What was the moment when you both decided there was an album to be written together? We were showing each other some songs – the album just emerged out of that. The first song we wrote is the first song on the record, which is “Didn’t Know What I Was In For. We wrote it not knowing if it was going to be for one of our records or someone else’s record. But we realised pretty quickly that it was meant to be its own thing. How directly collaborative was the writing process? It was interesting to write every song together, start to finish. It came naturally, but also there’s a natural push and pull.…

TEENAGE HEAD KAMA SUTRA, 1971 The band’s heavy swing meets studio  sophistication, and prospers. Tasteful piano licks and weighty guitar grooves work miracles, while the band keep one foot in their mean rockabilly riffing. SLOW DEATH UA, 1972 Reconvened without Roy Loney, but with the assistance of new  British singer Chris Wilson, the Groovies hit Rockfield with Dave Edmunds. This EP is particularly worth tracking down for the anti-heroin title track, which morphs raw Stonesy riffing into long-line German rock. SHAKE SOME ACTION SIRE, 1976 The tight and tuneful Groovies MKII in full effect.  On the album, tracks recorded with Edmunds in ’72 combine with more recorded four years later, but continuity prevails. “We knew there was a ‘Rockfield Sound’,” says Cyril Jordan today. JUMPIN’ IN THE NIGHT SIRE, 1979…

ANNE Briggs is reading the labels attached to the trees in Kew Gardens. Slight but steely, she veers off the path at every turn, silently trampling across lawns and occasionally clambering up raised beds. If she could drown out the noise of the aeroplanes coming in to land at Heathrow, she might almost be in her element. The most mythologised singer of the 1960s folk revival has lived in rural Argyll for the past few decades, and her animal instincts have been frazzled by a rare visit to London to attend Topic Records’ 80th-birthday celebrations at Cecil Sharp House. Dressed today in jeans, a red zip-up jumper and hiking shoes, she reluctantly comes out of the greenery and folds herself into a seat in Kew’s café. “I find being in…

EVEN at a time of high-end rock star hook-ups, the scene at London’s Lyceum Ballroom was pretty spectacular. The concert – a benefit for UNICEF – was billed as Peace And Love For Christmas. There, for the princely entrance fee of £1, audiences saw a bill including Desmond Dekker & The Aces, The Young Rascals, Blue Mink and Black Velvet and… who’s this? There, under a huge banner emblazoned with the words “War Is Over”, was a hastily assembled band. Among the dozen-strong ensemble, there were two drummers – Alan White and Jim Gordon – and a rootsy horn section, Bobby Keys and Jim Price. The lineup continued with Klaus Voormann on bass, Billy Preston on organ and, shaking a tambourine, Bonnie Bramlett. They were joined by no fewer than…

AS well as the many films, albums, campaigns and concerts of this era, some ideas never got off the ground. One of these was a book that Lennon and Ono wanted to publish as a follow-up to the best-selling In His Own Write and A Spaniard In The Works . “John had done these two books with Jonathan Cape and they wanted him to do another one,” recalls John Kosh. “He had collected all the hate letters that he and Yoko had received and had this stack of letters saying things like, ‘Why did you marry that Jap tart and can you send me a picture of Beatle Paul?’ “We gathered together all these letters and worked out a prototype of a book,…

AS Lynval Golding points out before a rabble-rousing version of “Gangsters”, The Specials’ debut single was released 40 years ago. In 1979, 40 years ago seemed almost prehistoric – Glenn Miller and the Andrews Sisters dominated the pop charts and the Second World War hadn’t even started. But since 1979, The Specials barely seem to have dated at all, largely because their music – and the post-racial spirit that they embodied – has seeped into four decades of British pop culture by osmosis, from Britpop to rave, drum’n’bass to grime, from the new wave of British jazz to the ska-tinged pop of Lily Allen, The Streets and countless others. There are a few fiftysomething ex-skinheads in the audience, but a large proportion of the crowd at this tiny showcase gig…

Switch on the man-machine! The latest in our Ultimate Genre Guide series is out on February 22 – Electronic Pop is the story of how Kraftwerk, Brian Eno and Giorgio Moroder laid the groundwork for a new wave of futuristic music. Featuring all of the above, plus Depeche Mode, New Order, The Human League, Gary Numan, Pet Shop Boys, the best 40 electronic pop singles, and more besides... To coincide with their 50th anniversary, there’s also the deluxe, remastered edition of our Ultimate Music Guide to Genesis, in shops now, with more solo Phil and Peter, plus a new introduction from guitarist Steve Hackett… This summer’s festival bills are starting to take shape. End Of The Road (Aug 29-Sept 1) have secured the services of Beirut, Spiritualized, Courtney Barnett,…

1 ROBERT FORSTER Remain The Go-Between returns this month with Inferno, and “Remain” is just one example of the riches on offer. “Sometimes this world has its cracks/I fell through/But I can do magic to turned backs,” Forster sings, as defiant and artful as ever. 2 EX HEX Tough Enough Mary Timony’s Washington DC power trio are back with It’s Real, their bigger, louder second album, and here’s the opener, a stadium-rock strut that slowly unravels into an ecstatic crescendo of slide guitar. 3 LAMBCHOP The Lasting Last Of You Drifting in on a wave of ambient sound, this highlight from Lambchop’s latest finds a digitally manipulated Kurt Wagner hovering above processed, jazzy piano, busy drums and atmospheric drones. A little Blue Nile, a little Talk Talk, all gorgeous. 4…

1 Daisy 2 Sixteen Days 3 Tasmania 4 The Boys Are Killing Me 5 Hand Mouth Dancer 6 Goodnight PCC 7 Burnt Out Star 8 Selene 9 Shame 10 Doctor’s In Produced by: Kevin Parker and Pond Recorded at: Kevin Parker’s studio, Fremantle, Western Australia Personnel: Nick Allbrook (vocals, vocoder, guitar, bass, electronics), Jay Watson (drums, bass, guitar, keys), Joseph Ryan (guitar, Uilleann pipes, percussion), Benjamin Witt (guitar), James Ireland (guitar, drum machine, keys, synth bass), Francesca Mountfort (cello), Joey Waronker (drums), Kevin Parker (drums), Tristan Parr (cello), Jonathan Wilson (guitar)…

1 The New Isn’t So You Anymore 2 Crosswords, Or What This Says About You 3 Everything For You 4 The Lasting Last Of You 5 The Air Is Heavy And I Should Be Listening To You 6 The Decemberish You 7 This Is What I Wanted To Tell You 8 Flower Produced by: Jeremy Ferguson and Kurt Wagner Recorded in: Nashville Personnel include: Kurt Wagner (vocals, vocal processing, beats, piano, Casio keyboard, guitar), Tony Crow (piano, Rhodes piano), Matt Swanson (bass), Matthew McCaughan (Eurorack analogue synthesiser, beats, drums, OP-1, percussion), Charlie McCoy (harmonica, vibraphone), Jacob Valenzuela (trumpet)…

The Comet Is Coming “We subvert the experience” How do you record? Betamax: We try to improvise. There’s very little discussion: we just play, settle on a tempo and go for the vibe. A lot of composition comes in post-production, where we’ll overdub things, shorten ideas. It’s like being a film editor – it’s a very creative process. What influences the band? Danalogue: We’re all into that 1973-’75 window of jazz rock – Billy Cobham, Jan Hammer, Jeff Beck, Mahavishnu Orchestra. I also got into King Crimson and Jean Michel Jarre. But there are loads of other elements, from rave to electronica to football. On “Blood Of The Past” I can hear Sunn O))), for instance, and lots of Alice Coltrane. Shabaka: People see Comet Is Coming as the dance-based…

Stephen Malkmus: “The influences are pre-internet” How long did Groove Denied take to make? I started properly about two and a half years ago. It took a while to come together. There are a lot of digital detours that no-one’s gonna hear! Maybe Aphex Twin could once have just pushed something out that took five minutes – that can be good, if you’re totally on fire – but for me, it took a while. There’s a definite progression here, from the electronic tracks to the traditional later ones. You’re right, it starts kinda cold, no emotion, a little camp and kinda British! Then “Ocean Of Revenge” and “Grown Nothing” are somewhat similar to the Jicks and what I’ve done before. They’ve got drum machines, but also…

FLAMIN’ GROOVIES Gonna Rock Tonite! The Complete Recordings 1969-71 CHERRY RED REISSUE OF THE MONTH 8/10 Groovies kind of love. Neglected first three albums from the power-pop dons. By John Robinson WIDESPREAD misunderstanding is the cruel lot of the cult band. Your finest moment might be great, however brief or commercially unsuccessful – but even that flurry might pass essentially unnoticed, admired only by a hard core of true believers. If they’re known at all, San Francisco’s Flamin’ Groovies are known for “Shake Some Action”, an excellent but underperforming single from 1976. Heard today – even as long ago as 1995, when it was covered by Cracker on the soundtrack to the witty teen comedy Clueless – it is a guileless and sparkling piece of music. Recorded with…

CURTIS 1 (Don’t Worry) If There’s Hell Below We’re All Going To Go 2 The Other Side Of Town 3 The Makings Of You 4 We The People Who Are Darker Than Blue 5 Move On Up 6 Miss Black America 7 Wild And Free 8 Give It Up ROOTS 1 Get Down 2 Keep On Keeping On 3 Underground 4 We Got To Have Peace 5 Beautiful Brother Of Mine 6 Now You’re Gone 7 Love To Keep You In Mind BACK TO THE WORLD 1 Back To The World 2 Future Shock 3 Right On For The Darkness 4 If I Were Only A Child Again 5 Can’t Say Nothin’ 6 Keep On Trippin’ 7 Future Song (Love A Good Woman, Love A Good Man) SWEET EXORCIST 1…

“THE Dubliners met Annie at some gig in Britain and were very impressed by her singing (and personality); they saw a strong resemblance in our singing styles and songs and said as much to her, and myself. Not long afterwards she decided to pay us a visit and I met her in O’Donoghue’s pub. We did get on well together and began singing around Dublin; a frequent haunt was the Neptune Rowing Club, where the singing would last well beyond closing time and continue on the lawn outside. However, we were happiest out of town, sleeping rough and attending Fleadhanna Cheoil [non-commercial gatherings of traditional music fans, singers and players], mostly in the west and southwest of the country, where Annie’s wildness could be freely expressed. Her whooping yell of…

“YOU think you’ve had it rough in life until you visit Badbea, which is only five miles up the A9 from where I live. It’s a very beautiful setting on the cliffs looking out over the North Sea but quite an inhospitable place in the winter. It was during the late 18th and early 19th centuries that the Highland clearances drove crofters off the surrounding lands to make way for large-scale sheep farming. “Badbea is the settlement where they went to try and start again. They had to build their own houses and prepare the slopes for farming. Once established, they tried to get by fishing for herring and subsistence farming. It was a very tough life. In bad weather, the kids had to be tied to a post or…

“I’VE been reissuing all my mum’s albums – including the ones she did with dad. For the Wedding Album , the main thing was to recreate the packaging, which was so elaborate. It came with all these little photos and letters and instructional art. It’s the one thing I’ve been working on in my life that my mum reacted to so positively. When I gave her the first batch of reissues, she cried. She was so touched and I felt I’d done something good. It’s a beautiful thing for me to part of. It feels like I’ve come full circle, doing something for my mum, saying thank you for my whole life. “For me, the Wedding Album signifies the beginning of the creation…

NATURAL BORN BUGIE (SINGLE, 1969) Their debut single lashes American R&B to heads-down boogie, with Marriott, Frampton and Ridley trading verses. AS SAFE AS YESTERDAY IS ( AS SAFE AS YESTERDAY IS , 1969) The title track from their first album is restlessly inventive, flipping from acoustic reverie to flammable rock and interchangeable vocals. THE SAD BAG OF SHAKY JAKE ( TOWN AND COUNTRY , 1969) Switching between electric piano and guitar, Marriott excels on this superior ballad, folding together Southern blues, country and folk. EARTH AND WATER SONG ( HUMBLE PIE , 1970) The band’s third album saw them grow noticeably heavier, which makes this blissed-out acoustic gem from Frampton all the more striking. STONE COLD FEVER…

Moe Tucker on keeping up with Lou post-VU “FOR the first few years [ after The Velvet Underground split up ] we were in touch just a little bit, then after that – I’m very much into Christmas cards, so I would always send them Christmas cards. We didn’t talk every week or every month, but we kept in touch via cards and phonecalls here and there. Did I always get Christmas cards back? No! But that didn’t deter me. “I did go to New York quite often to do other things, to record my own stuff and to do business stuff. That was the only times we’d get to see each other. Sometimes he’d be off somewhere else when I was there, but we were always happy…

April 4, 1968: Martin Luther King is shot dead in Memphis. The next night, Brown’s show at Boston Gardens is broadcast live to prevent a riot in the city August: Fred Wesley and Charles Sherrell join Brown’s band. The first thing they record is “Say It Loud…” August 25: The single is released, with the second half of the song on the B-side October 5: The track reaches No 1 in the American R&B charts and stays there for six weeks October 19: It peaks at No 10 on the Billboard pop chart November 1968: The full version is released on A Soulful Christmas March 1969: “Say It Loud” is the title track of Brown’s 27th studio album…

FIGHTING WITH MY FAMILY OPENS FEBRUARY 27 The Rock and Stephen Merchant oversee real-life story of a working-class Norwich girl who becomes an international wrestling champion. ALIEN OPENS MARCH 1 Reissue for Ridley Scott’s venerable chest-busting space shocker. You know how it goes. HANNAH OPENS MARCH 1 Powerful close-up study of Charlotte Rampling’s titular character as her life gradually unravels after her husband is imprisoned. THE AFTERMATH OPENS MARCH 1 Hamburg, 1946. Keira Knightley’s British army wife begins an affair with Alexander Skarsgård’s German widower. WHAT THEY HAD OPENS MARCH 1 Hilary Swank returns home to deal with her ailing mother; Michael Shannon and Robert Forster co-star. CAPTAIN MARVEL OPENS MARCH 8 More of this kind of thing. Brie Larson’s superhero gets caught up in an intergalactic war. Inevitably, Samuel…

REGGIE YOUNG The Memphis Boys guitarist (1936–2019) EXPLAINING how he arrived at his signature guitar sound, Reggie Young told the Soul And Jazz And Funk website in 2017 how Memphis musicians drew equally from Nashville and the Mississippi Delta. “I’m kind of a cross between BB King and Chet Atkins,” he suggested. “Most of the soul music back then was in Memphis. That’s where I came from.” Young’s consummate blend of country, blues and soul, allied to an intuitive sense of melody, sustained him through a career that bridged seven decades. As lead guitarist in The Memphis Boys, the house band at Chips Moman’s American Sound Studio in the ’60s and early ’70s, Young played on such timeless classics as James Carr’s “The Dark End Of The Street”,…