it all started when I once heard that song on Radio Luxemburg, a child with a small radio under the blanket and a limited space for fresh air. The first time I learned how to secretly let the air in in decent portions. Nobody should disturb my resistence against sleep. It really got me. And America got him. It started with a flickering light sending black-and-white images through an old movie projector. Faces of cowboys and Indians, superheroes, the good guy victorious over the emissaries of evil. You certainly have some of these memories, too, my first Western hero was Robert Fuller.
And how must this all have been for a North Londoner, about 10 years older, on the other side of the sea, when rock, jazz, skiffle … the blues … and old country songs came to liberate him, growing up in the austerity of post-war Britain. The music gave him hope and feeling that he could express himself in song through this new art form called rock and roll. My first single ever was „Rock and Roll Music“ from the Beatles with John Lennon (I didn’t know it at the time having been totally absorbed by the song’s high energy) delivering a first-class Chuck Berry cover.
Then, as Ray toured America with his band, he saw the place first hand and up close – from the roadside of a dreary bus stopin the middle of nowhere to the Hollywood Bowl – as they experienced good times and bad times. His first impressions were full of romanticised images from childhood recaptured from the relative safety of a tour bus or hotel room. However the real world soon arrive like an univited guest and the flickering light turned into the cold light of day.
It’s one good thing in being bound to slowness and a bit ill between the years, life becomes more meditative. I feel better every day, but you have to keep a strong discipline. So I took some time for a look into the future (for you it must have appeared like a look in the past!), and can tell you that the guy I have been speakin‘ about will come up with a new album, probably in spring, Ray Davies‘ „Americana“ ( based on his insightful book with the same title from 2013).
Best, Michael!
P.S. Our „friend“ Robert Wyatt can at last been heard on one song called „She Moves With The Fair“ (isn’t that an old British folk song?) that will be part of Paul Weller’s work „A Kind Revolution“. He will sing a bit and „play the trumpet like Donald Byrd“, as Mr. Weller said. And, Gregs, before spring will embrace us all hopefully with a taste of summer, new records might have found their ways to us from Joni Mitchell (10 new songs, with orchestra, I listened to one on BBC6, well, not sure about my first impression), Mark Eitzel (reading interesting things about it, but I forgot his voice), The XX, and The Flaming Lips. I’m really hoping Scritti Politti’s will take shape, soo.
How many great guitar albums did we hear last year: now, on Feb. 3rd, a new solo recording from Ralph Towner will be there: „My Foolish Heart“ (produced in Lugano). One of the most adventurous journey of 2016: Vijay Iyer and Wadada Leo Smith. Again on Feb 3rd this other great pianist from New York (remember his solo masterpiece „Avenging Angel“!), Craig Taborn will jazz the house with his quartet: Craig Taborn (the ECM side of sounds).
By the way, I hope you will find Stephen Dobyn’s book „Ist Fat Bob schon tot?“ nearly as mind-blowing as Sun Ra’s collection of „jukebox hits“. In these very, very quiet days of Christmas (with Swaazi candles, warm showers, and green tea), I switch between reading „Das Fest der Schlangen“, getting wonderfully lost in the first season of the series „The OA“, happily waiting for the breakfast show with Brian tomorrow („Reflection“ is my „healing music“) and listening to early Jethro Tull albums. You can really listen to „Aqualung“ with grown-up ears, and I never want to miss a second of it.