Jukebox

 

Music features a great deal in Deadlines. It is another enduring passion embracing rock, folk, blues, jazz, country, soul, sacred, classical and some opera. Many of the tales in the book have a musical soundtrack in my mind. Glenn Miller`s Moonlight Serenade sends me to some wartime airfield more than 10 years before I was even born. Michael McDonald invokes Oxford, Donald Fagen`s The Nightfly was the soundtrack for the move to Cornwall, Handel`s Air from the Water Music Suite conjures up sunsets across old airfields on hills like Little Rissington and Binbrook……..

The English writer Aldous Huxley wrote: `After silence, that which comes nearest to expressing the inexpressible is music.`

This is the Deadlines  jukebox, reflecting some of the music scattered throughout the book………….

Alain Romans – Quel Temps Fait-Il A Paris (J.Tati`s Les Vacances De M. Hulot)

Charlie Chaplin leaned forward when he walked.  Jacques Tati`s Monsieur Hulot leaned back. Rowan Atkinson has credited Hulot with some of Mr Bean`s mannerisms. `Monsieur Hulot`s Holiday` is one of my favourite films – something new emerges every time you watch it (Ch 3)

Bernard Wrigley – Holes in the Road

The `Bolton Bullfrog` started off as a folk singer in the 1960s but is also a fine actor and comedian. He has appeared in Phoenix Nights, Emmerdale, Coronation Street, Last of the Summer Wine, Coogan`s Run and many more. He often ended his music gigs with a raucous version of `Nellie the Elephant`. (Ch 11)

Bob Dylan – A Hard Rain`s Gonna Fall (Concert for Bangladesh 1971)

The Christian beach mission group had exuberantly treated us to `Michael Rowed the Boat Ashore` and `Mine eyes have seen the Glory` and were now singing something more unusual, more challenging. The chorus was about the answer vaguely blowin` in the wind. Someone said it was new out of the United States by a folk singer called Bob Dylan.  I have stuck with the singer since the mid-60s, currently revisiting his energised concerts around 1980 and 1981 when he was working through a brief period of religious fervour. The official bootlegs keep on coming (Ch 15)

Bruce Cockburn – Life Short Call Now (see Debrief)

The Caravelles – You don`t have to be a baby to cry  (see Ch 13)

Central Band of the Royal Air Force – RAF March Past

Stirring stuff. Add The Dambusters March, Reach for the Sky, 633 Squadron, Battle of Britain and Angels One Five. They will be heard a great deal in 2018 – the centenary year of the Royal Air Force.

Derek Blaster Bates – Lift-Off!  (see Ch 17)

Donald Fagen – The Nightfly  (just because)

Doobie Brothers with Michael McDonald – Keep This Train A Rollin`

The Doobies were always a favourite before, during and after Michael McDonald`s time with them. I remember a coach trip to London in my early days in Boston, returning with a Quicksilver Messenger Service compilation and the Doobie Brothers LP `The Captain and Me`. The white soulful voice of Michael McDonald is back in favour again, pulled in to sing on Thundercat`s latest project and also releasing a new album of original songs in September 2017 called `Wide Open`.  (Ch 23)

The Doors – Riders on the Storm    (more than enough in Ch 19 & Debrief)

Dusty Springfield – Son of a Preacher Man   (see Debrief)

Edward Elgar – Sospiri   (Ch 12)

Fairport Convention – Come All Ye

The double LP `History of Fairport Convention` was a constant backdrop to my year in Darlington on the print journalism course, along with Santana`s `Caravanserai` (Ch 25)

George Fenton – Theme from `Bergerac` TV series  (Ch 10)

George Handel – Air (from The Water Music Suite)

Glenn Miller Orchestra – Moonlight Serenade

The Glenn Miller Story film was always evocative with the backdrop of war and young American men making the most of dance nights before they were called early the next morning for daylight bombing raids over Germany. The disappearance of Glenn Miller on a flight from Bedfordshire to Paris in December 1944 remains a mystery. Was it a fault with the aircraft or were they hit by bombs being jettisoned by returning Allied aircraft high above them? (Ch 5)

Henry Hall & His Orchestra – Teddy Bears` Picnic

Dad`s favourite bandleader as a teenager in the 1930s. He tried to make sense of my teenage music but it was a world away from what he grew up with.  The late 1960s was a heady time with the BBC`s `Top of the Pops` at the centre of school day discussions. `I bet they don`t even know what they are singing about,` guffawed the Vicar of Filey as the Rolling Stones scampered through `Honky Tonk Women`. Hmm, I thought….. Parents queried what sort of name for a band was `Pink Floyd` (drawn from the names of two old blues singers actually) and, although they liked the bit of Bach in Procol Harum`s `A Whiter Shade of Pale`, what was all that about sixteen vestal virgins heading for the coast?

My parents were never quite sure what to make of this new music although Dad tried hard. He liked the Simon and Garfunkel song `Cecilia` from the `Bridge over Troubled Water` album but why, oh why, did they have to have the verse about `making love in the afternoon, upstairs in my bedroom, I get up to wash my face, when I come back to bed someone`s taken my place`.  Turned out nice again, Vicar.

One afternoon he was going into Scarborough and asked if there was anything I wanted. Could he get me a new LP that was on my wish list which would cost about 37 and sixpence? At Bernard Dean`s record shop in the resort, he was greeted by the familiar staff who no doubt expected him to be after a new harmonica, the latest seminal platter by Bert Kaempfert or James Last, a bit of Italian opera or `Your Hundred Best Tunes Volume 94`.  So they were surprised to hear him say; `Have you got the new album by Carlos Santana and Buddy Miles, recorded live at Diamond Head in Hawaii?`. They did.

Jimi Hendrix – In from the Storm   (Ch 23)

Johnny Mandel – Theme from M.A.S.H (tv series instrumental)   (Ch 20)

Kate Bush – James and The Cold Gun (live 1979)    (Ch 25)

Kenneth Horne & Richard Murdoch – Much-Binding-in-the-Marsh  (Ch 17)

Latin Quarter – Radio Africa  (Ch 25)

Loreena McKennitt/Lord Tennyson – The Lady of Shalott  (Ch 22)

Lynryd Skynrd – Freebird (live Knebworth 1976)   (Ch 15)

Marvin Gaye – What`s Going On  (see Debrief)

Michael Chapman – Postcards of Scarborough  (see Debrief)

Michael Flanders & Donald Swann – Song of the Weather  (Ch 25)

Nick Drake – Time of No Reply  (see Debrief)

Paul Simon – Some Folks` Lives Roll Easy  (Ch 13)

Ritchie Havens – What about me  (Ch 18)

Rory Gallagher – I could`ve had religion (Live in Europe 1972)

There were three music fans on my print journalism course in Darlington in 1972/73. We had endless discussions in The Green Dragon about the merits of Roxy Music, Rory Gallagher and Santana (me). I was brought round to the music of Rory G very quickly. He died in June 1995 of liver failure aged only 47. There is a life-size bronze statue of him in the centre of  Ballyshannon in County Donegal.

Sandy Denny – Who knows where the time goes?  (see Fairport and Ch 25)

Santana – Guajira   (Ch 6)

Seth Lakeman – Solomon Browne  (Ch 10)

The Singing Postman (Allan Smethurst) – Sound Barrier  (Ch 5)

Steely Dan – Glamour Profession   (see Debrief)

Tom Petty – A Face in the Crowd   (just because)

Tom Waits – Picture in a Frame  (see Debrief)

Vera Lynn – We`ll Meet Again  (Ch 12)

The Who – Young Man Blues (live)   (Ch 19)

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