Any Major Dude With Half A Heart

Last week the Internet magazine Nerve.com invited me, quite out of the blue, to contribute to their fortnightly feature “Five Albums You Should Listen To This Week”. It seems Nerve asks only “titans of the mediasphere” to write that column. So here we have confirmation what the loyal reader knew all along: that the halfhearteddude is indeed a titan (remember us!). So, here are Any Major Titan’s halfhearted recommendations.

I was asked to choose five albums from the country/bluegrass/folk genre.  To enforce some discipline on myself, I imposed a limit to include only 2011 releases. The five I picked are almost certain to feature in my year-end Top 20.

To offset all that good musicness, here are three of the worst records I have in my collection. Now, I wouldn’t say they are bad in the way a filler track on a Starship album or a Westlife hit or or that LP of Beatles songs being barked anything by Michael F. Bolton is bad. For those there is no redemption. These songs are bad and their creators probably know it. These are compellingly bad songs. I dare you to listen to Alan & Denise’s epic Rummenigge (a love letter to the German football player of limited likeability) and not be earwormed by it. Genius.

Alan & Denise – Rummenigge (1983).mp3
Susan Christie – I Love Onions (1966).mp3
Mrs Miller – Chim Chim Cher-ee (1966).mp3

The alert reader might have noticed that one William von Saxe-Coburg und Gotha is going to marry his blushing bride Catherine on Friday. Perhaps young William is better known by his family’s stage name Windsor, the name of one of the joints his family owns, chosen in order to distance the family from its German provenance during World War I.

This blog likes a good wedding, and in the spirit of the nuptial celebration would like to offer Wilhelm and his Frau a few sincerely selected party tunes for the reception, to be played when the wedding band takes a break from doing Come On Eileen. We mean it, man.

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The Redskins – Bring It Down (This Inane Thing) (1985).mp3
“You’ve never had it so good; the favourite phrase of those who’ve always had it better. You never had so much, is the cry of those who’ve always had much more, much more than you and I. Burn brother burn, fight together, this altogether’s an insane thing, insane thing. Bring it down.”

The Men They Couldn’t Hang – The Colours (1988).mp3
“I was woken from my misery by the words of Thomas Paine. On my barren soil they fell like the sweetest drops of rain. Red is the colour of the new republic, blue is the colour of the sea, white is the colour of my innocence, not surrender to your mercy.”

Stone Roses – Elizabeth My Dear (1989).mp3
“Tear me apart and boil my bones, I’ll not rest till she’s lost her throne. My aim is true my message is clear: It’s curtains for you, Elizabeth my dear.”

The Housemartins – Flag Day (single version, 1985).mp3
“So you thought you’d like to change the world, decided to stage a jumble sale for the poor, for the poor. It’s a waste of time if you know what they mean, try shaking a box in front of the queen ’cause her purse is fat and bursting at the seams. It’s a waste of time if you know what they mean.”

Manic Street Preachers – Repeat (1992).mp3
“Repeat after me: Fuck queen and country. Repeat after me: Royal Khymer Rouge. Repeat after me: Imitation demi-gods!”

Motörhead – God Save The Queen (2000).mp3
“God save the queen, she ain’t no human being. There is no future in England’s dreaming” etc.

Billy Bragg – Take Down The Union Jack (2002).mp3
“Is this the 19^th century that I’m watching on TV? The dear old Queen of England handing out those MBEs. Member of the British Empire; that doesn’t sound too good to me… Take down the Union Jack; it clashes with the sunset.”

The Smiths – The Queen Is Dead (1986).mp3
“Farewell to this land’s cheerless marshes hemmed in like a boar between arches. Her very Lowness with a head in a sling, I’m truly sorry, but it sounds like a wonderful thing.”

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Let’s state the obvious first: Rebecca Black’s Friday does not represent an acme moment in the annals of popular music. I am even inclined to agree with those who suggest the song is quite awful, especially in its excess of autotuning. It sounds like the theme song for a particularly hyperactive Japanese game show. My remaining days will not be diminished by the absence of Friday on my iPod.

But those people with whom I’m inclined to agree are not the target audience, many of whom dislike the song as well. Black’s target audience has a crush on Justin Bieber (for whom I cannot muster much loathing). And Black’s target audience likes all manner of scantily-dressed young ladies and their dentally-blinged rapper friends for whom the age-old challenge of inventing euphemisms for the carnal act no longer is a necessity.

Rebecca Black has probably copped more hatred over the past few weeks than Colonel Gadaffy, the Taliban and wife-beating loser Carlos Estevez combined.

Perhaps I’m becoming increasingly priggish as middle-age is forcing its oppressive embrace upon me in much the same manner as a cheek-pinching moustachoid aunt reeking of cheap perfume, but I rather welcome the innocence of Rebecca Black’s song. Indeed, I would locate her lyrics in the inventory of early ’60s pop, when the Beach Boys had fun fun fun fun fun and possibly contemplated the seating arrangements in their little Deuce Coupé as they cruised fast to go partyin’ partyin’ (yeah).

Black offers innocent relief to the image of a virtually naked Lady Gaga drinking blood as she thrashes about in the fake vagina of a creepy dude with face tattoos. Even if Rebecca’s fellow car passengers seem to be squirming in evident embarrassment, why should she not have fun fun fun fun on Friday. And why should she not make a record and video about it? She is 13 years old, after all. Contrast that with the venerable gentlemen from Green Day, no less in the clutches of moustachoid Aunty Middle-Age than I am, who choose to call their new live album Awesome As Fuck, a title any halfway sentient kid over 14 would reject as lame.

If we want to mock bad lyrics, then there are many far more appropriate targets. You can find seven of them here, and feel free to add more examples in the comments section to this post. And does Rebecca merit scorn for her doctored vocals when the autotuned rapper Drake — an autotuned rapper, for crying out loud! — remains at liberty? Do we really want to point fingers and laugh at the child? What sort of cruel society takes pleasure in making an apartently very nice 13-year-old girl cry, because she likes to have fun?

My good friend Ian provided what I think is the most perceptive observation to the Rebecca-scorning, saying that he would be “heartbroken” if his teenage daughters were “subject to an international hate and laughter campaign just because they made a song about how much they love Friday night”. Indeed.

And while we formulate our responses of empathy to the next person who mocks Rebecca Black, here’s a tribute to the days of the week, even those Rebecca fails to mention, in the Any Major Week mix. As always, it should fit on a standard CD-R.

TRACKLISTING
1. Marvin Sease – Friday (2001)
2. Dee Dee Warwick – Another Lonely Saturday (Baby I’m Yours) (1965)
3. Chaka Khan – Any Old Sunday (1981)
4. Matthew Sweet & Susanna Hoffs – Monday Monday (2006)
5. Cat Stevens – Tuesday’s Dead (1971)
6. Simon & Garfunkel – Wednesday Morning, 3 A.M. (1964)
7. Harry Nilsson – (Thursday) Here’s Why I Did Not Go To Work Today (1976)
8. Steely Dan – Black Friday (1975)
9. Nick Drake – Saturday Sun (1970)
10. Velvet Underground – Sunday Morning (1967)
11. John Prine – Long Monday (2005)
12. Chairmen Of The Board – Everyday’s Tuesday (1970)
13. Ronnie Dyson – A Wednesday In Your Garden (1973)
14. Matt Costa – Sweet Thursday (2006)
15. The Pale Fountains – Beyond Fridays Field (1984)
16. Josh Woodward – Saturday (2006)
17. Laura Nyro & Labelle – I Met Him On A Sunday (1971)
18. Fats Domino – Blue Monday (1956)
19. Yazoo – Tuesday (1982)
20. Lisa Loeb – Waiting For Wednesday (1995)
21. The Futureheads – Thursday (2006)
22. Jens Lekman – Friday Night At The Drive-In Bingo (2007)
23. Walker Brothers – Saturday’s Child (1966)

DOWNLOAD
(Mirror 1 Mirror 2)

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More mixes

The two of you who wish you could have more of Any Major Dude With A Too Long Name, there is some respite: I am now part of the collective over at Star Maker Machine that blogs and posts music on a weekly theme. The SMM blog has long been a favourite (I think I found it through the now sadly defunct and much missed Setting The Woods On Fire country music blog). Readers who have sampled my blogroll might also have happened upon Cover Laydown (or came here via Boyhowdy’s fine blog).

Star Maker Machine is named after a phrase in Joni Mitchell’s 1974 song Free Man In Paris: “I’d go back there tomorrow but for the work I’ve taken on stoking the star-maker machinery behind the popular song.” So I’ll post that song and six others (look at the URL of Star Maker Machine to see why that number) that deal with the concept of stars and stardom (or in one case, the lack of necessity to be one).

Hope to see you over at Star Maker Machine.

Joni Mitchell – Free Man In Paris (1974).mp3
Kiki Dee – Star (1981).mp3
Marilyn McCoo & Billy Davis Jr. – You Don’t Have to Be a Star (To Be in My Show) (1976).mp3
Mojave 3 – Big Star Baby (2006).mp3
Roger Miller – Kansas City Star (1965).mp3
The Kinks – Starstruck (1969).mp3
Altered Images – Dead Pop Stars (1981).mp3

This might become a new series: moments in pop that you really would not have expected. One of these would be the case of the country legend and everybody’s dad’s favourite singer recording an album of original songs in Afrikaans. So it was with Jim Reeves, who in 1963 recorded an album solely for the small South African market.

The linernotes for the re-release of the Jy Is My Liefling album on CD in 1995, written by the album’s producer Louis Combrinck, recall Gentleman Jim’s huge popularity in South Africa, where he was by far the biggest-selling star. Long before the cultural anti-apartheid boycott took hold, Reeves toured South Africa in the early 1960s, with a line-up that included the great Chet Atkins and legendary piano tinkler Floyd Cramer (the tour was plugged as RCA, punning on the artists’ label and the initials of their surnames). In the Orange Free State capital of Bloemfontein, a bastion of Afrikanerdom, Reeves took to the stage shouting “Vrystaat! The best!” By shouting Vrystaat, Reeves expressed the archetypal South African cliché.

While in Johannesburg, Reeves recorded a cover version of a popular song at the time, From A Jack To A King by Ned Miller. The single went on to top the South African charts, and inspired in RCA the idea of Reeves recording an album in Afrikaans. Combrinck was tasked with putting together a bunch of songs with lyrics in easily pronouncable Afrikaans, which Reeves could sing phonetically while back in South Africa to tour and appear in the film Kimberley Jim (about an American singer during the 1880 goldrush in the Northern Cape town). Reeves’ American-accented Afrikaans is quite passable; he clearly made an effort. The songs themselves are the sort of sentimental Reeves fare that got your dad hooked (and you probably truly put off).

In 2003, almost 40 years after Reeves’ death in a plane crash in 1964, South African singer Patricia Lewis pulled a Natalie Cole by releasing a duet of the album’s title track, Jy Is My Liefling (You Are My Darling).

Jim Reeves – Ek Verlang Na Jou.mp3
Jim Reeves – Jy Is My Liefling.mp3
Jim Reeves – My Blinde Hart.mp3

Last year I wrote a series of my ten favourite albums in each year of the past decade. When the ’10s end, I’ll be stuck to produce a list for 2010. I’ve fallen off Planet Latest Releases, encountering the occasional new release by accident or recommendation. I am looking forward to getting my hands on the new album by the lovely Weepies (out 31 August), and I’m intrigued to hear Ben Folds’ collaboration with the writer Nick Hornby, which is scheduled for release later this month. Some albums I looked forward to have disappointed me (Josh Rouse, where are you going?). Here then are a couple of albums from 2010 that made me prick up my ears.

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Willie Nelson – Country Music

Willie Nelson lost me before he could have had me when he did that duet with Julio Iglesias, who was as uncool as uncool would ever get (and collaborator of promiscuous character, Willie has duetted indiscriminately with some pretty dodgy characters). I never liked On The Road Again much, nor his version of Always On My Mind.  It was only when I became familiar with his 1960s output that I began to appreciate Willie Nelson — and how much I missed by writing him off for crooning with greasy grannies’ favourites.

Country Music, his T-Bone Burnett-produced tribute to the country songs that reside in the juke box of his memory may be my favourite Nelson collection. Cover albums are a precarious beast. Some artists feel they need to re-interpret, re-invent and update the songs they profess to love. Others will give us the very best in karaoke. Nelson just damn well sings the songs, straight and without bullshit. He knows these songs and their context, and preserves them there. The sound is timeless. And some of the song choices are inspired, including that of one of my all-time favourites, Al Dexter’s Pistol-Packing Mama (which we’ll revisit in the history of country series, as well as the Delmore Brothers’ Freight Train Boogie). I love Nelson’s version of Merle Travis’ Dark As The Dungeons, which is probably better known in  Johnny Cash’s version on the Folsom Prison album. (Buy it here)
Willie Nelson – Dark As The Dungeons.mp3
Willie Nelson – Pistol-Packing Mama.mp3
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Johnny Cash – American VI – Ain’t No Grave

How much is enough? Seven years after Johnny Cash died, we get another collection of his Rick Rubin-produced American series. Did Cash really die, or is he speaking to us from the beyond, the way Tupac Shakur did with such punctual regularity? Apparently this is the final release in the series, and it is a fine way of going out. There’s nothing new here but the special poignancy of knowing that Cash recorded these ten songs in the four months between the death of his beloved June Carter’s in May 2003 and his own in September, with Cash acutely aware of his mortality without descending into morbidity, and to the end insusting on communicating his deep religious faith. Some songs I can live without (Aloha Oe!), and some cannot compete with the previous versions (Kristofferson’s For The Good Times). But the minimalist arrangements and intimacy of Cash’s fragile yet forceful and soulful voice wrap the songs in a warmth and appealing sense of yearning. Like Pistol-Packing Mama, the original of Cool Water will feature in the history of country very soon.
Johnny Cash – Last Night I Had The Strangest Dream.mp3
Johnny Cash – Cool Water.mp3

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Walt Cronin – California I Gotta Run

One of my favourite songs of the last decade was 2005’s A Desperate Cry for Help by the sadly rather obscure and now disbanded alt-country group The Beauty Shop. Walt Cronin’s third album reminds me a lot of the Beauty Shop, right down to his gravelly baritone and lovely Americana arrangements. Already in his 50s — this post so far seems to specialise in grey follicles — Cronin’s voice and sound reflect the experience of life, wistfully and defiantly. “I would never count the days of my life, but I’ll always let the dawn greet my eyes,” the former medic in the Vietnam war sings in Shinin’ Through, one of several sweet love songs on this most appealing set. (Walt Cronin’s homepage)
Walt Cronin – If My Words.mp3
Walt Cronin – Shining Through.mp3

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Berry Jones – Tonight

And moving away from silver foxes with guitars, here’s Philadelphia band Berry Jones who wanted to see if “we can try to make Thriller in a basement; like, can we get Quincy Jones-era production techniques on a shoe string budget” (the band’s name pays tribute to Quincy and Berry Gordy). Of course, with modern digital technology it is much easier to produce effects which a Quincy Jones would have to apply his genius to achieve. One need only listen to Sweden’s Loney, Dear to hear what wonderful sounds can be produced by one man in his bedroom (in terms of music, I mean). Indeed, Berry Jones’ opening track, Work It Out, starts a bit like a Loney, Dear song. But quickly it becomes a pop number that recalls the 1980s. It’s all an upbeat stew of different ‘80s influences, from Culture Club and Shalamar to two-tone to indie – and, yeah, Michael Jackson (especially on Philly Nights) — and a dash of Gordy’s Motown.  The vocals call to mind The Cure’s Robert Smith. The album might not quite evoke the genius of Quincy Jones, but the first half of it is a fine set of numbers to play while dressing for a party or on the way to the beach, and the soul-infused second half when coming home from the party or from the beach. (Berry Jones’s homepage)
Berry Jones – Philly Nights.mp3
Berry Jones – Your Old Ways.mp3

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Dana Wells – The Evergreen EP

Here I’m cheating a bit: The Evergreen EP came out in 2009. But singer-songwriter Dana Wells is so talented, I want to include her in this selection. Dana may be young — just out of her teens — but this is no Taylor Swift. The Washington Post’s reviewer might need a better sub-editor, but suggested rightly that “there’s a settled maturity to the lyrics and tempered voice of this strummy smartie that’s usually reserved for older artists”. Let’s not be put off by the language of “strummy smartie” (who writes that kind of rubbish, and what editor passes it?). Wells is an engaging singer; one wants to get to know her. Her voice and delivery are very appealing, reminiscent of the lovely Mindy Smith. And, somehow, I really like Dana’s diction. It’s not easy for singer-songwriters to break through, but with her talent and beauty, Dana Wells might just be one who will make it big. (Dana Wells on MySpace)
Dana Wells -Watching Winter Melt Away.mp3
Dana Wells – Leave Me.mp3

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And so I’m saying goodbye to lodging on the sofas of WordPress and Blogger, and move into my own home, with my own domain and my own armchair.  Please bookmark it and, if you are a fellow blogger, amend the link: www.halfhearteddude.com

The presentation here is a work in progress. Some of the things WordPress used to do for me automatically, I now must do myself. It’s a bit like leaving the caring landlord who painted your walls (but evicted you for putting a nail into the wall for a framed picture) and having to paint my own walls.

So, to get the housewarming going, a batch of songs on the theme of home, quickly collated by executing a couple of searches on my drives. There was enough for a hundred songs, it seems. Not of all of them are lyrically appropriate; Porter Wagoner’s song about an execution, for example. I’m pleased to have opportunity to highlight the great soul crooner Grady Tate. And the Terry Smith song…well, if anybody wants to know the sound of Cape Town, this is it, authentically.

Gil Scott-Heron – Back Home (1974).mp3
Grady Tate – After The Long Drive Home (1974).mp3
Porter Wagoner – Sing Me Back Home (1969).mp3
Sammy Davis Jr – Any Place I Hang My Hat Is Home (live, 1967).mp3
Charlie Sexton – Bring It Home Again (2005).mp3
Bo Diddley – Down Home Special (1956).mp3
Terry Smith – Take Me Home (The Cape Town Song).mp3

Yesterday WordPress deactivated my blog at halfhearteddude.wordpress.com. It’s their service I’m using for free, and they were fair enough not to delete all content (as Blogger have done), so I’m not really that outraged at them — though it would be nice to know who my accusers are. The e-mail from WP refers only to a DMCA complaint. One!

The blog was zapped just four days after I posted a candid analysis of Old Blue Shades’ twattery. The timing may be coincidental, or not. The notion that Bozo’s boys might have leapt into action against my musky corner of the blogosphere is at once flattering and disquieting. Bozo’s twattery remains undiminished, whether or not his goons had anything to do with the blog-zap. Just in case they were, I’ve taken my piece on Bozo off this blog. You know, don’t feed the monkeys.

Happily, nothing has been lost — except my extensive list of links (which I’ll have to rebuild manually when time allows), my pretty good Google ratings, and probably a fair number of readers who will presume that my blog no longer exists. At last my Facebook friends know where I am (go HERE to be a FB friend), and I hope fellow bloggers will update their links. Of course, that slice of genius, totallyfuzzy, will direct readers old and new to this possibly temporary address.

Perhaps it is a good thing that I’ll have to rebuild a readership, if not from scratch, then certainly from a base of lower expectations. I had noticed that I was studying the blog stats a little too compulsively. In the second half of 2009, the daily average of hits was in excess of a thousand (the highest number to visit my bog in a day was something like 1800). So when the daily stats showed below-average hits, I would feel unnerved by that. I started entering into a competition with myself.

So I can see an upside. That is not to say that I am very annoyed, of course. The zapping came at a busy time, when all kinds of routines in my life have been unsettled and I am in desperate need of a holiday, which I cannot take.

As I said, the amdwhah.wordpress.com address will be temporary, so like the late folk-singer Cisco Houston, I’m just be passing through.

Cisco Houston – Passing Through.mp3

Postscript: I owe Bonzo a big snivelling apology, having just come across his poem “Elvis”, written in 1995, when he was 12, and performed in May last year on the BBC. What right do I, a mere mortal, have to sneer at Bimbo the Bard who conjures, from places I cannot and would not much like to fathom, artfully wrought verse such as: “elvis the plastic, elvis the elastic with a spastic dance that might explain the energy of america”. I am not worthy of even being made up of similar molecular matter as Bombo! Bingo, pray for me.

Fifteen years ago last night, Any Major Wife and I were chilling out on a Friday night, awaiting news of the induced birth of the baby of friends of ours. The mother was my AMW’s bridesmaid, so we were quite excited. Our baby was due around Christmas. Where bridesmaid’s baby was in no rush to emerge cryingly into the cold, cruel world, our baby exhibited the first signs of a characteristic common to both its parents: impatience.

To cut a long story short, before we received news of bridesmaid’s labour endeavours, AMW was in the maternity clinic. At 5:30am on November 19, just as I glanced out of the window to see the dawn of a beautiful early summer’s day, Any Minor Dude popped out. Because he was five week’s premature and showed signs of breathing difficulties, he was immediately put on oxygen in an incubator — before either of his parents could hold him. In fact, it’d be a couple of days before we could hold him.

Perhaps it was because the vital postnatal mother-child bonding moments were skipped that he presented his Dad with those first milestones which babies more commonly reserve for their Moms. His first smile, on Christmas Day, was at me (well, the first we saw anyway). His first word was “Dada”. And he took his first steps in my direction, on Boxing Day 1995, albeit set off on his way by his mother.

Any Minor Dude, before his second birthday

Any Minor Dude and I have maintained an excellent relationship. I have enjoyed every stage of his life, much as I miss those that came before. I treasure the moments of dancing and singing him, then three, to sleep to the music of the Righteous Brothers, or hearing him singing You’ve Lost That Lovin’ Feeling in the bath. I treasure the memory of him walking Venice flat with us all day when he was four, not once complaining but participating in the fun of being a tourist (he’ll make a great traveller). I still laugh at some of the silly games we used to play, like hiding under the blanket and identifying nonsensical places where Mommy putatively was looking for us in vain (in the microwave oven, under the bath plug) — the beginning of a shared appreciation of the absurd. And how lovely the moments of lying in his bed when he was a Grade 2 or 3 pupil, reading Asterix comics or Pippi Longstocking books together, in funny voices. And, as I have written on several occasions, rarely was I so proud as when Any Minor Dude, then 10, told his guitar tutor that he wanted to learn to play the music of Johnny Cash.

Only rarely was there a need to discipline the kid. Three token smacks on the bottom was the extent of violence ever visited upon him. Among our friends, my threat to buy the then 3-year-old a “cap with ears”, like the hood of his new-born cousin’s babysuit, is legendary. Of course, Any Minor Dude didn’t want to be a baby. Around that time, he emphatically announced after due reflection that he was “not a baby anymore” and, indeed, “finished to be a baby”.

Today, at 15, he defies most of the teenage stereotypes, other than a tendency not to do any more schoolwork than is strictly necessary and getting embarrassed at whatever the parents do or say. Only occasionally does a door slam.

Any Minor Dude, last year

If TV drama shows are any indicator of reality (yeah, right), expectant parents tend to panic about whether they’ll be “good parents” and whether they’ll be to blame if their child turns out to be psychopath. I don’t know whether history books will be lavish in their references to our refined parenting capabilities, but I do know that Any Major Wife and I have produced an intelligent, responsible, balanced, fair-minded, loyal, non-bigoted, kind, funny, respectful, even-tempered and very handsome young man who supports the correct football team and loves the Beatles. The alert reader may sense that I am very proud of my son.

As for the bridesmaid, her daughter finally deigned to exit the womb at 11:30pm. Born six hours before Any Minor Dude, she is a day older.

To celebrate Any Minor Dude’s 15th, here are a couple of birthday songs (and look, Ma, no Beatles or Stevie), plus a very funny comedy routine from 2007 by Patton Oswalt.
Andrew Bird – The Happy Birthday Song.mp3
Abra Moore – Birthday Song.mp3
Altered Images – Happy Birthday.mp3
Bright Eyes – Happy Birthday To Me.mp3
Patton Oswalt – You Are Allowed 20 Birthday Parties.mp3

Should there still be people who think of Google as t-shirt clad rebels against The Man, let them be disabused of their folly. Quite in contrast to the image Google seeks to portray, they are a corporate branch of The Man, not the Internet’s equivalent of cuddly mineral-water drinking Ashbury Haights hippies.

Among Google’s service is Blogger (with the blogspot.com addresses). Those who follow such things will know that Blogger indiscriminately deletes posts in response to (supposed) DMCA notices alleging copyright violation. Google will not tell which part of an offending post breached copyright, and I have come across cases where posts were deleted in supposed accordance with the DMCA, but did not feature copyrighted material. Google has every right to protect themselves from real threats of legal problems, but they seem to be doing more than that. The deletions are indiscriminate.

Presumable there is pressure from the music industry (or perhaps Google has a stake in the industry). If so, it is a shame that record companies fail to distinguish between blogs that upload the latest Madonna album before it is being released, and those that post mostly old and often out-of-print music. A blog of the latter nature was Whiteray’s excellent Echoes In The Wind, which last week was deleted in its entirety, without warning. I cannot see how the music industry is being crippled by a blogger sharing the obscure sixth track of Boz Scaggs’ 1969 album. But, of course, Whiteray has no idea what content produced complaints — if any — from copyright holder.

Echoes In The Wind: nuked by Blogger

In the last few weeks, I’ve had messages from members of two ‘70s groups, the Persuasions and the Flaming Ember, thanking me for posting their music. Circumstantial proof that some artists do support what blogs like mine and Whiteray’s and many others are doing. We hope to introduce readers to music we are passionate about, or make them aware of a relevance that may create interest. Much of that music is out of print or otherwise rare. We all hope that the interest we hopefully generate will animate some people to buy the albums. All of us are happy to take down music should the copyright holder ask (they needn’t even be polite). Few of us, if any, try to make money out of this blogging thing. There are no ads on this blog, there were none on Echoes In The Wind. We do invest much time and, I hope, talent for the love of the music.

So Echoes In The Wind has been nuked. An archive representing years of work is gone (though Whiteray has saved his drafts in Word documents). But there is some good news. As of tomorrow, Tuesday, Whiteray will be back, not on Blogger but on WordPress. Visit him in great numbers for a housewarming at http://niagaseohce.wordpress.com/

To celebrate, a few songs with appropriate titles. All fine songs. Buy the albums.

Joseph Arthur – Echo Park.mp3
A lovely, haunting ballad from Arthur’s excellent 2004 album Our Shadows Will Remain.

Jimmy Dludlu – Echoes From The Past.mp3
Great Afro-jazz track by the South African guitar virtuoso, from the classic 1997 album of the same name.

Tristan Prettyman – Echo2.mp3
Gorgeous track by a gorgeous singer in the folk-tinged pop mould with which Colbie Caillat has had deserved success lately.

Dar Williams – Echoes.mp3
Williams has recorded many albums; this song is from a favourite of those, 2005’s My Better Self.