Music and Random Thoughts:
When I was very young I remember we had a Polyphone ,which seemed to me then to be a very large mahogany piece of machinery with a glass front and great big iron discs punched with very sharp spikes that, when they revolved plucked the appropriate strings and played tunes. A wind up job of course. We also had a Piano which Dad played by ear.
"Take me Back to Dear Old Blighty", "Pack up Your Troubles", "Ther's a Long Long Trail A'winding" and "Madmoiselle from Armetieres, parley vous" I grew up with....... Music Hall,, Marie Lloyd, Harry Lauder, Will Fyffe and on and on.
Through the twenties, "The Jazz Singer" and the flappers and the Charleston, into the thirties and Gracie Fields, "The Biggest Aspadistra in the World", George Formby, "Riding in the TT races"
Oh! that I had the sheet music from those days.
Not that Music played a great part in my early life. There was no musical talent in the family as such, so when Dad heard anything on the wireless faintly resembling Opera his favourite phrase was."Who's the woman screeching her guts out?"...........:which reminds me............., do other families have 'sayings' that carry on down the ages.?
'Ha! ha! she cried laughingly as she waved her wooden leg' was one of Mothers, from god knows where but probably my Grandad.
Above my Grandfathers mantlepiece was a painting of, I think a young Prince being interrogated by Cromwell. Hence, on every visit to Grandfather I was greeted by,"Hello young lad, when did you last see your Father" to which I would mumble something and flee. Formidable man my Grandad.
Grandad William Dedamess and Grandma Rose nee Ponsford:
"If yer Grandma had had a tall hat she'd have been yer Grandfather" one of Dads favourites for "ifs".
But I digress: You may well wonder at my choice of Album Sleeve as a heading................yea? Well, it wasn't until the kids got into music at various stages of their lives that I really got involved. Mainly of course because I was the guy that paid for the records .
Mike the eldest son was Led Zep, AC/DC, Emerson Lake and Palmer, Crosby, Stills and Nash' and early 'Pink Floyd'. They seemed to go quite well with his leaky 'Matchless'. and the 'biker image'., Steph was very 'sixties' and still is even now she's fifty. "You'll Never Walk Alone" still brings tears to her eyes, but then, we are both "Reds". The younger girls were both 'Osman', 'David Cassidy', 'Moody Blues', 'Smokie, 'Suzi Quatro' ' and on and on............
Strangely, though ,young Chris got into "Yes" from the age of about twelve. Bedroom walls covered in Roger Dean posters,.................. and then he fell in love with Kate Bush.
OK, so what's that got to do with the price of spuds you may well ask?
Well, in the forties I was in my twenties. I'd come through "A Monastry Garden", "Come into the Garden Maud", and "In a Persian Market", the British Big Bands, Roy Fox, Henry Hall, Jack Payne, the "Savoy Hotel Orpheans" and Harry Roy., but now upon us were the Glory Days of "The Big Bands".
The first time that I really 'got into' music. Glenn Miller, Artie Shaw, Harry James, Jimmy and Tommy Dorsey, Bob and Bing, and of course the Great Musicals of Cole Porter, Oscar Hammerstein, Gershwin and so much more, I could go on all day if I could remember them all........... Bloody good job I can't I suppose.
When I was in the Isle of Man in 1941, top of the charts was "Amapola" closely followed by "Red Sails in the Sunset". Now there's a bit of memory for ya!.
Dancing was something I wasn't much into so the Victor Sylvesters of the world passed be by somewhat. So did the Jitterbug era, something to do with being a severe RAF father I suppose. Not quite the thing old chap. However..................!
Our family all seem to be late starters, forty seeming to be the "Age of Aquarius" or something. So, while in Berlin in 1971, I bought, in the NAAFI our first Radiogram, a Grundig Mandello front load which we still have, and our first LPs.
Melanie: Garden in the City. Nancy Sinatra and Lee Hazelwood: Laura Nyro: It's Going to Take a Miracle.
Unfortunately I can't get teh Stylus for the Grundig but my Phillips deck is fine.
Prior to the Grundig I'd bought a Mono Phillips reel to reel tape recorder so had lots of fun with DIN plugs, splicers and microphone. Recordings of Julie Felix, off tele. and Lindesfarne, Beatles, "Pictures from an Exhibition" by Emerson Lake and hours of music from American Forces Network in Berlin, all collecting dust in the shed..........Good old Shed. Still plays by the way.
Anyway or anyroad, depending where you come from, I found, with the influence of the kids, the Biking fraternity (Out the RAF now) and being a Civilian Factory Worker, that I was getting more into the music of the era.so instead of sounding off about the great bands of the forties as would be the normal wont of a guy from that period, I was more into "The Heavy Stuff"..........Wierd.!!
Dark Side of the Moon: My Third Copy.
Rainbow, Meat Loaf and Motor Head:
And I'm still into the heavy stuff although I don't have any "Metallica" or such. It's more like a nostalgia for my middle years. While I was on my welding course in 1977 or thereabouts aged 55 or thereabouts, I went with my room mate Andy (digs in Long Eaton) to a Wedding party of two young Bikers. It was at her Mums place and there were bikers with arms in plaster, legs in plaster.........what happened to you mate?......... "car pulled out on me dinnit?", .........."chucked it dahn the road din' I ?. all good biking stuff. Plenty of ale (Andy was on Tequila), and numbing music as per above. At about two o'clock in the morning she (the bride, can't remember her name sadly) decides to play the Parrot sketch so.................".he's off the twig, he's curled up his tootsies, he's shuffled of this mortal coil, he's rung down the curtain and joined the bleedin' choir in twittygel............................He's fuckin' snuffed it!.......... Again and again and again..........time to go! A great night but slightly deaf for a couple of days.
And so the years passed. LPs by the dozen, Singles by the dozen. "Easy Listening", "Country", Cash, Campbell, Robins, Flatt and Scruggs, The Byrds, , Chet Atkins, Hank Snow, Waylon Jennings Willy Nelson and Hank Williams to name a few, "Piaf", "Shirley Bassey", "Sinatra", "Abba", the great Kris Kistofferson, (Me and Bobby McGee), Trad Jazz but never did take to progressive, until I eventually settled for my two Favourites. "Queen" and "Pink Floyd"
"Queen" and "Pink Floyd"
Sad about Freddie, his own stupid fault I suppose but never the less! It was probably Mozarts own stupid fault as well..............mentioned in the same breath?????.........well alright but you know what I mean.
So, pretty well an endless range really, although, as I said before, progressive Jazz is the only sort of music I couldn't get into. Then again, Bartok doesn't do much for me either so I'm a "Romantic" it would seem.
I'd find it impossible to choose "Desert Island Discs" although "Jackie" Duprez's Elgar Cello Concerto would certainly be in there, and Mozart's Clarinet Concerto wouldn't be far behind...................definitely a Romantic. But.............................!
Random Thought:. What part does Music play in mankinds past and future ?. Consider every nation, every caste and creed and its musical heritage, every film score, radio goo goo, radio gaga, every Lullaby, every Military March, every Love Song, every Hymn, Psalm or Requiem, every memory of an occasion associated to a song, tune or lyric. It's ability to arouse every possible human emotion known to man. Instrument of God, instrument of the Devil ?. Woodstock, Glastonbury, Reading................, Discos, Lapdancing, Fertility Rites,.......... Weddings, Funerals.
I have a friend who has no music in his life. I cannot imagine!!!.
And that really is about it .I can't imagine life without it, and often wonder why it is that musicians in general live to such a ripe old age.