MY LAST TRACK !

Music-to-Die-For ?                                                                                                                          ( but not yet!)

Hi everyone...i was daydreaming about my favourite bands, singers and songwriters, from all the great music i've listened to ( and played professionally ) in my life, and a lightbulb flashed in my head - when that day comes, when all the rellies and friends are gathered round, tears streaming - yes streaming down their sad creased faces - and i'm patched up to that great disco in the sky - which ONE TRACK do i want to be playing 'at the death' ? ( sorry, i can't resist bad jokes ! ).  This is the focus of MyLastTrack, a blog with an edge.....for those who just cannot bear to think that there will be a day when they have to check out, then maybe a switch to another blog would be advisable...but in a strange way, once i'd accidentally realised that i actually and naturally had, a MyLastTrack, it made the idea of moving on in life (well, out of.) rather more acceptable.  So that is the focus of this humble blog - to ask people to play with idea that out of all the thousands of songs and pieces of music that have been heard so far in life, there might be just ONE that could stand for the emotional core of that life.  A tough idea in several ways i guess, not least because i can imagine that so many people have loved so much music that narrowing it all down to just one simply cannot be done...i understand that completely.  This blog and the MyLastTrack idea would never have been imagined if it wasn't for the way my own 'Last Track' got under my skin in a totally natural way in my life. So one could say that in my case, the 'Last Track' came first, and the blog idea second, so i never had to go looking for that one piece of music. There's one unique aspect to making this kind of choice of course - can't go back and change your mind !  So it needs to be right.

The more i thought about it, the more i realised that this decision, this weighty selection really was important to me, because i already had a track in mind, and it sums up a crucial turning point in my life, after which my listening and playing were never the same again.  I heard the band that created MyLastTrack at full-volume, live, on the English south-coast ( on the end of a Victorian pier in fact ), in 1963 - though that date might be edited later - but not by more than a year either way.  For everyone in my band on that night 'The Storms'  the show we saw was a 'Ureeka' moment - we were all changed by it.  From that night on, we not only played differently, we felt things differently, and we even dressed differently !  No, NOT the one tie !, but the stripey sailor-type T-shirt and the leather waistcoats >>>

                                                                    The Storms, 1964/5..Portsmouth, England

 ( Live tracks  - 'I Can Tell', 'No Reply', 'Memphis Tennesee', 'She's About A Mover',  'Need A Shot of Rhythm and Blues', and more from
  The STORMS, in Germany, 1965, to follow below.....) 


Before i reveal all and name the band and the track i heard on vinyl later, the impact it had will make more sense if i add a bit of context - some potted history of what sounds the music biz was serving up in those days.  The sweet and harmless styles and clean-cut images all around us in the late '50s / early '60's were the essential prelude to the shock ( and insane pleasure ) we experienced when we casually wandered into that end-of-the-pier gig on that night.  First, just a few lines about the even wider, deeper setting in which the pop-music bomb went off, affecting all of us - even my Mum would jump in the back of the van going to our next gig, in spite of my efforts to lock her in the house...ever tried to be a cool teenage musician, irresistible to the opposite sex, when your Mum is actually dancing with 'em at the front of the stage ?  J......z.

Behind these light-hearted jottings about apparently ephemeral 'pop' and 'rock', with references to fashion and trends, sub-cultures and personal memories, there lies a profound politico-social narrative.  The upheavals in personal and public life that exploded after the Second World War was over and the feeling that, at last,  a new, hopeful, progressive age could flourish, are seamlessly linked to the history of styles in popular music.  STYLE is SUBSTANCE, not some cloak that substance wears to keep out the cold and look pretty.  Just bring up a Sex Pistols video and turn the sound completely off...watch Johnny and try to not know: this is Punk.  Or, try to imagine Punk happening in 1955, haha....one minute Bing Crosby, I'm Dreaming of a White Christmas, ( i'm sure he had one ), the next the Pistols' God Save the Queen !  So i will need to refer to British class-structure and the ANGER and frustration within the disillusioned sectors of that society, in order to explain part of the emotional underpinning of my own MyLastTrack. 

Before offering any examples of the general sweet sounds that filled the air-waves ( all radio in those days! ) there's one crucial thing to say :  i absolutely am NOT trying to be critical or judge or put down ANY artist, song or style whatsoever.  Music has been the solid foundation and love-of-my-life....even trying to imaging a music-less world could make me crack up - and i love ALL GOOD MUSIC, end of.  So when i focus on MyLastTrack and contrast it with what was going on around us when i first heard it, i am making a personal and cultural Distinction, not a Hierarchy.  There is talent and quality in every one of the tracks presented below, and the longer i have tried to write and perform music in my own life, the higher has my respect, admiration and in some cases, AWE, gone up the scale. Ok, that's the disclaimer out of the way - i'm hoping that will keep quite a few salvos fired into the air and not at this humble defenceless blog !

Here is the first example i've chosen to set the music-historical background for just why MyLastTrack is the one that i have to have.  The first recording to set the tone of the musical context back then is from the famous crooner, Johnnie Ray with the classic 'With These Hands' >>>

This is my second choice, the legendary Buddy Holly - who made so many guitar-players want a ( often unaffordable ) Fender Stratocaster - with the unforgettable 'Everyday'  >>>

 My third example was a huge star, it's silky-voiced Pat Boone with the hit 'April Love' >>>

Number four in my selection showcases that iconic Stratocaster again, it's the masters of  sweet guitar instrumentals, The Shadows, with a tune we covered, 'Wonderful Land'  >>>

Number five is the highly successful 'Rubber Ball', which was a huge radio-hit, by Bobby Vee >>>

Number six is getting close to the Holy Grail (!)...it is that unstoppable teen-rave and early Elvis-admirer, Cliff Richard, straying into the blues field, where, lets be honest, neither he nor The Shadows ever belonged or looked/sounded all that comfortable with.  It is Olivia's ex- (only joking CR :-] ) doing 'My Babe' >>>

( At this point it's possible that some voices might want to insist that i've loaded-the-dice by leaving out the 'Fab Four', who certainly beefed-up the British pop-style along with other 'Merseybeat' originators - lets remember 'The Big Three' here, and 'King Size Taylor & The Dominoes', who headlined in Liverpool before the Beatles dominated the Liverpool scene, after their return from Hamburg. ( I played drums in Hamburg for another 'scouse legend', Lee Curtis, but that's another, humbler story.)  So i will put the Beatles' first two smash hits on a separate Page soon, and comment on them there. )

Number seven, and at last, it's my own,  MyLastTrack !!!  Like the amplifiers in the unique rock-movie 'Spinal Tap', that Volume knob needs to be up to No.11 for this one.  I am hoping that all six previous tracks have been listened to before 'dropping the needle' on this track, because its unique, raw character and the explosion of excitement it caused in our brains is only adequately grasped against the sweet innocent softness of those background examples of the prevailing audio-styles of pop-music in the mid 1950s to very early 1960s.  So, confession-time : My own MyLastTrack, is, will be, and has always been, MY BABE, by the incomparable British 3-piece, The PIRATES >>> 

( On a separate Page i will go into some detail about why i love this single so much - and why i   think it is a perfect track.  I will also include comparison-files for three other related classic tracks - 'Castin My Spell', 'Some Other Guy', and 'I Can Tell' - a J.Kidd & The Pirates recording rather than a pure Pirates version.  The Storms own live rendition of 'I Can Tell' is the Audio-clip in my Profile. On another Page i will bring together a set of Storms live tracks from one night in Germany, 1965 - the influence of The Pirates is i think, obvious. Other Pages will have Pirates pics, and Storms pics for the ... of it.)

At this point, i want to take up two different approaches  - one to show how big a break with the existing styles The Pirates most intense performances were, by presenting some other renditions of 'My Babe', in themselves extremely varied.  In historical terms, the first two are arguably the most important - first the higher-profile Little Walter's recording; and second the recording by the classic song's creator, Willie Dixon.  My second tack is to offer a selection of some of the many other cover-versions of this song to add to Cliff's above, some memorable, some maybe not. They are from Dale Hawkins (1957); Ricky Nelson (1958); Elvis Presley (1969); and the inimitable Bo Diddley (1962). I have read somewhere that even Peter & Gordon once did a version - that would be intruiging ! - but i haven't been able to find it...if it exists and someone has a file, please send it over.

First then, the brilliant 1955 Little Walter version, released on the Checker label (811), and at 45rpm on a 7" single, then a very new format ( the cover shown is obviously not from the single - it's just great to have on the page! ) >>>

And here, in all its gentle, swinging beauty, is My Babe by its creator, WILLIE DIXON, >>>

To me, the story of the journey taken by an entire sub-culture of Afro-Carribean / African-American songs from Gospel and other traditional forms all the way to British urban blues ( Cyril Davies, Alexis Korner, John Mayall, Graham Bond, early Fleetwood Mac...) and on to British R&B, Rock and 'Hevay Metal, is a magical one. At times, i also find it a mystifying one - what or where was the unifying common ground ?  And my own favourite question - where did the attack, the aggression, the 'up yours' / 'in yer face' edge that The Pirates and other bands developed ( e.g. Punk in the mid-70s) come from ?  And why so much of this full-on style in 60's and 70's Britain ?  Answers on a postcard please...later, i might devote a page to theorising a bit about these questions - until then feel free to jump in with thoughts....As far as 'MY BABE' is concerned, it was reportedly based on the old gospel song, 'This Train Is Bound For Glory', recorded way back in 1939 by Sister Rosetta Tharpe, as 'This Train' - in that form a tale of the elevation of saints into Heaven.  (More notes on 'My Babe' on the dedicated Page.)  Legend has it that within days of Ray Charles' very original adaptation of the gospel song 'It Must Be Jesus' into 'I Got A Woman' hit the the Billboard charts in January 1955, Little Walter began recording 'My Babe', which went on to overtake Charles' record and stay at No1 in the R&B chart for 5 weeks. I dare say there were many religious voices raised against this colonization of the sacred for the very secular genre of 'Man vs Woman'.