There are a lot of things that go a long way to making a great record, in my humble, and a couple of them are great musicianship (controversial, but I include singing in that) and a sense of joy; this album has both of those in abundance. Track Dogs (the name’s taken from the denizens of the deeps of the New York subway) is Garrett Wall, Dave Mooney, Howard Brown and Robbie K Jones (two Irishmen, an Englishman and an American) who met up in Madrid. You might expect a mashing of influences, but “Kansas City Out Groove” goes way further than that. It fuses reggae, string band arrangements, Spaghetti Western and jazz and even hints of pop.
There’s a rare combination of four great players who also have superb voices, creating stunning individual vocal performances and the almost inevitable perfect harmonies. So where do you even begin to start picking out favourites? The Latin trumpet and rhythms and the nailed-on harmonies of the opener, “The Deep End” set the scene nicely, the lead vocal having more than a suggestion of our great British blues and soul hero, Aynsley Lister, and the hundreds and thousands come with the trumpet solo doubling up to two horns as the song plays out.
And from there on in, anything can happen. My personal highlights are the midtempo “Find Me a Rose”, blending folk song themes of life coming from death with Latin rhythms and constant tempo changes. “I Don’t Want to Ruin It” combines clipped funk guitar parts, a powerful trumpet solo and hints of David Gray’s “Babylon” to question where a relationship should go next and “Born in Love” has a chorus that is pure Steely Dan circa “Can’t Buy a Thrill”. Last, and definitely not least, is “My Big Payday” packed with tempo changes, Chicago/Asbury Jukes horns, a classic swing feel and a whole bundle of fun.
The playing is outstanding, the harmonies are superb and it’s joyful throughout; just give it a listen.
“Kansas City Out Groove” is out now on Mondegreen Records.
You get to the end of an extensive tour, your band have been taking the roof off every night, but now they’re world-weary and road-raddled; they just want to go home and spend time with their families, so what do you do? Well, you book a studio for a couple of days to catch them while they’re still hot and blast through some of your favourite old blues songs. Well, that’s what Canadian bluesman Colin James did, and the result is “Blue Highways”, recorded live in the studio in two days at the end of his last tour. It captures the raw energy of live performance with studio quality without compromising either side of that delicate balance.
What about the material? Well, it’s thirteen of Colin’s favourite blues(ish) tunes covering a pretty good chunk of the blues canon, from the opener “Boogie Funk” (more boogie than funk, I think) with harmonica, Hammond, a simple electric riff and the classic guitar/Hammond solo interplay to the solo acoustic closer “Last Fair Deal”. It’s a pretty good demonstration of Colin’s feel for the whole blues spectrum. The Muddy Waters song “Gypsy Woman” evokes, well, Muddy Waters, as does the honky-tonk “Hoodoo Man Blues”, sounding like seventies McKinley Morganfield with his sidekicks James Cotton and Pinetop Perkins.
“Lonesome” is a jazzy uptempo shuffle with some lovely guitar fills and “Big Road Blues” is great fun with a slide riff and two lead guitars, but it’s when the band moves away from the standard blues that things get really interesting with the acoustic blues of “Last Fair Deal” and the harmonica-driven “Riding in the Moonlight”; the electric material’s good, but the acoustic songs really stand out. Finally, it’s a brave singer that takes on a song that’s been performed superbly by Otis Redding and William Bell in the past, but Colin’s slow soul take on “Don’t Miss Your Water” is a creditable effort, with a vocal that has hints of the UK’s own Aynsley Lister. It’s not breaking any new ground, but it’s a good demonstration of a band at the top of their game.
“Blue Highways” is released on True North Records of Friday November 25.
Ok, let’s get the whinge out of the way first; I really wish smaller venues would do something about their stage lighting. On a night when it looked like you had to have a pass if you weren’t taking pictures, the lighting made it almost impossible to get a decent photo. Rant over. The good news is that the support for the evening, Shady Blue Orphans were very good, knocking out a great set of mainly seventies and eighties rock covers including “Hold the Line”, “Jump” (Van Halen, not the Pointer Sisters) and the classic Thin Lizzy ballad, “Still in Love with You”. The playing was spot on and singer Tony Monk has a very special rock voice. I spent ten minutes working out that his voice sounded a lot like Music Riot favourite Aynsley Lister, and that’s a very good thing in my book.
Anyway, on to Space Elevator. Their debut album was reviewed here last year and this is the first chance we’ve had to get out and see them live. For the Garage gig (the first of their summer mini-tour) the line-up was reduced to a four-piece, the band playing without the benefit of Elliott Ware’s keyboards. The songs from the album all fit in somewhere between good and very good and the standard of musicianship is as high as you would expect from seasoned session players but with all due respect to David Young, Brian Greene and Chas Maguire, it still needs another ingredient to make it special; to get upfront and sell that expertise and hard work to the audience. The not-so-secret weapon for Space Elevator is The Duchess and it’s fair to say she’s impossible to ignore. The voice is big and she commands stage centre with hyperactive moves and catsuit set to stun.
The set was basically a runthrough of the album with the occasional unexpected ingredient thrown in to spice up the mix, and it held together really well as a live set, opening, as the album did, with “Elevator”. The singles “I Will Find You”, “Loneliness of Love” and “Oils and Bubbles” were interspersed with “Ordinary Day”, “We Are the Losers” (which are definite singles material as well), “Little White Lies” “More Than Enough”, “Really Don’t Care” and “We Can Fly” to showcase almost all of the album. Two non-album songs, “Take the Pain” and “Far Away” were slotted in before the two sides of the current single and we even got a cheeky cover. I wouldn’t have predicted that “Day Tripper” would be a Space Elevator cover but the band made it their own with a truncated riff and a harder edge that worked particularly well. And not forgetting an encore of “Love in an Elevator” to round things off.
There were a couple of technical glitches, but you have to expect that on the first night of a tour and it was still a banging set. The songs work well live, the rhythm section was rock solid and David and The Duchess have all the melodies you could ever need. Throw in that extra bit of onstage exhibitionism and you’ve got the perfect rock package.
You can still see the rest of the tour here:
Railway Venue, Bolton April 25
Arts4every1, High Wycombe May 9
Homefest, Buckinghamshire July 19
It’s a bit like the footie really; the real fans are the ones who come out on a cold Tuesday night in January to show their support. Things start slowly but by the time Little Devils hit the stage, the 100 Club’s full and everyone’s forgotten that it’s brass monkeys out on Oxford Street. It’s one of those nights that proves that there’s still a healthy audience for blues bands (and it isn’t just the Wrinkly Rockers) but it also shows the range of artists taking shelter under the blues umbrella.
Stark suffer a little bit from the ‘I’m only here to see the headliners’ syndrome (and too many people having loud conversations, but don’t get me started on that) but they power-trio their way through a solid set to a decent response (and it still seems odd to see a guitarist play a resonator for electric blues, but it seemed to work).
It’s about a year since I last saw Little Devils (one of my Top 5 gigs of the year) and, in that time, they’ve certainly moved on. Most of last year’s set came from the then-current EP “About Time”, but there was a lot of new material this time which should be appearing on the album they’re just about to record. They cover a wide range of styles in forty-five minutes, ranging from funked-up blues driven along by Sara’s drums and Graeme’s sinuous basslines, through slow blues ballads showing the power of Yoka’s voice and Big Ray’s fret-bashing, almost all the way to prog-rock with some of the flute solos (well, they are on the same bill as Focus in a month). The Devils have a very strong stage presence, good songs and the kind of feelgood factor that generates a loyal fanbase; tonight, the cold January night seems a long way away as they turn the audience from quiet foot-tappers into a seething mass that’s ready for anything.
Which brings us to Aynsley Lister. I’ve never seen Aynsley do a headline set and I’ve been looking forward to this for a while. He’s a little bit more subdued than usual following a recent back injury, but that doesn’t mean he’s holding back musically, although we certainly don’t get any star jumps. The longer headline set gives the band the opportunity to have a bit of fun and jam a little with guitar and keys trading licks occasionally, but the songs are still strong, with “Inside Out”, “Broke”, “Sugar”, “Impossible” and “Hyde 2612” from the latest album “Home” all making the set, each one showing a different facet of Aynsley’s playing, writing or singing. It’s all too easy to focus on Aynsley’s playing, but his voice really does set him apart; it’s a soulful rock voice with a bit of a plaintive edge which works perfectly for the songs from “Home”. The finale’s “Purple Rain” of course, which combines a bit of guitar flash with audience participation and that’s a pretty solid way to end the night.
It’s pretty good demonstration of the diversity and general good health of the British blues scene that three bands so different can share a bill and all be appreciated by the audience. We all expect musicians this scene to be able to play, but both Little Devils and Aynsley Lister have very strong original material and the best songs tonight from both bands are probably the ones that are furthest away from traditional blues roots (Aynsley’s “Inside Out”, for example). I think that’s a good thing (it certainly made “Home” one of my favourite albums of 2013) but I know that not everyone agrees.
Anyway, the bottom line is that this was a great night out with two bands playing such different styles that there was no sense of competition, just a huge effort to give the audience a good time. And you can’t argue with that on a Tuesday night in January.
There are two albums which were reviewed on MusicRiot on the Top 40 Independent Album chart last week, Neneh Cherry’s “Blank Project” and Stone Foundation’s “To Find the Spirit”. These albums have a few things in common; they’re both fourth studio albums, they both have guest artists, both were rated as 4* by MusicRiot writers and both feature guest performers and the similarity pretty much ends there. Except that, as Neil Sheasby, bass player and songwriter with Stone Foundation pointed out a few days ago, both albums were in the 30-to-40 section of the Independent Album chart, “To Find the Spirit” at 33, “Blank Project” at 38.
It isn’t a straightforward comparison; Neneh Cherry’s album peaked in the top ten a fortnight earlier while “To Find the Spirit” has just entered the chart in its first week. The interesting story here is the journey that each of these albums made to reach those chart positions. This isn’t a criticism of Neneh Cherry; it’s an achievement to get any kind of significant album sales at a time when the value of music has been so degraded by piracy and the industry has no time or money for artist development. Most of the bands I’ve spoken to recently have only the most tangential contact with the traditional music industry, usually at the distribution end of the chain.
Neneh Cherry was operating on a fairly tight budget with “Blank Project”; it was recorded and mixed in five days (featuring guest appearances from Robyn and RocketNumberNine) by Four Tet’s Kieran Hebden, generating a certain level of interest in the project outside Neneh Cherry’s own fanbase, which is still reasonably healthy after a long time out of the spotlight. In the weeks leading up to the release there was a significant amount of interest from the trade press and even the inkies in the UK; the physical release was in vinyl and bonus CD form with the CD containing the almost obligatory remixes. So, signs of a marketing budget there. Maybe not a huge budget, but enough to get the album into the mainstream media.
Stone Foundation have been doing their thing for about ten years, building up a local, then national, then international following; putting in the hard graft, basically. The band has played as Stone Foundation and has also backed touring soul singers such as Nolan Porter and Joe Harris, building a reputation and a hugely loyal fanbase. There’s no complicated organisation in place here; no manager or entourage; just seven very gifted and committed musicians (plus long-time production collaborator, Andy Codling) with a total belief in what they do.
“To Find the Spirit” has a few guest appearances too. Nolan Porter, Carleen Anderson, Pete Williams from Dexys and even Paolo Hewitt are all there. The album even has a remix; the Dennis Bovell dub of “Don’t Let the Rain”, which is available on all formats. The promotion campaign was minimal, focussing on social media and a support slot on The Selecter’s anniversary tour, but still the album managed to break into the official Independent Album Top 40.
It would be easy to moan about how much better it was in the good old days when artists got huge advances and only toured in support of an album, but that model just doesn’t apply any more. Most artists now only make money by touring, and a lot of that income is from merchandising. Take a step away from singles charts and there are thousands of talented and hard-working musicians taking control of the recording, marketing and distribution processes (physical and electronic) to get their own material out into the marketplace with very little help from the mainstream media. The MusicRiot writers try to cover as many artists as we can who are working in this way (as do thousands of other websites) but it’s only effective if our readers actually do something about it. It’s so easy to try before you buy these days that any music lover should be able find new artists doing something interesting and appealing if they make the effort. It’s all going on out there but, despite 6 Music’s slightly patronising campaign, it won’t come to you automatically; you have to make the effort to go out and find it.
So I say thank you to Stone Foundation and the other artists and labels we’ve featured recently; The Brothers Groove, Roscoe Levee, Bandhouse Records, Drumfire Records, Ags Connolly, Phil Burdett, Dean Owens, Jo Hook and Geoffrey Richardson, Noel Cowley, Pete Kennedy, Aynsley Lister, Vera Lynch and the Billy Walton Band. All of these artists are making their own wonderful live and recorded music while doing whatever else it takes to allow them to keep on making music.
Now go out and support them.
So, how was 2013 for you? The Riot Squad have had a brilliant year bringing you the best in contemporary music wherever we find it. Allan, John, Klare and Louie have reviewed some exceptional live and recorded music throughout the year and we all thank you for reading our reviews and looking at our photos. We couldn’t resist this opportunity to remind you of some of the artists we reviewed for the first time in 2013.
We saw live performances by the Emile Gerber Band (which became Stoneface Travellers), Henrik Freischlader, Josephine, Marcus Bonfanti (solo and with his band), The Kennedys, Federal Charm (twice), Black Casino & The Ghost, Coco and the Butterfields (several times), The Dirt Tracks, Carrie Rodriguez, Aynsley Lister, Civil Protection, Wheatus, Dean Owens and Zoe Schwarz Blue Commotion. Quite a selection, really.
We reviewed albums and singles by Henrik Freischlader, Marcus Bonfanti, Sally Shapiro, Tomorrow’s World, Black Casino & The Ghost, Jimmy Livingstone, Austra, Tess of the Circle, Aynsley Lister, The Nyco Project, The Dirt Tracks, Nadine Shah, Sullivn, Radio (in my) Head, Tal National, Layla Zoe, Kinver, Au Revoir Simone, DENA, Hartebeest, Polly Scattergood, Glasser, Annie, Emika and John Grant and probably a few others as well. Along the way we had some great fun and met some lovely people; you all know who you are, and we’re hoping to meet most of you again this year.
Looking forward to 2014, we’re hoping for more of the same. The review copies are already coming in and it’s starting to look pretty good already. Over the next few weeks, we’ll be sharing some of our predictions for 2014 from the Riot Squad and possibly from a few guest contributors as well. And, while we’re on the subject of guest contributions, many thanks to Aynsley Lister, Steve Jenner, Marcus Bonfanti and Billie Ray Martin for their contributions to our High Fives feature last year.
Oh, is it my turn for the albums? Ok, these five stood out way above the rest and they’re a pretty mixed bunch but I think that’s what Music Riot is all about. Have a listen to these if you can because there’s a lot of really good music here.
When you’ve listened to a lot of blues and blues/rock (and believe me I have over the years), you understand how easy it is for even very good players and writers to slip into the blues clichés, lyrically and musically. Some writers understand that not every song has to be a twelve-bar blues with lyrics about bad booze and wanton women, and Aynsley Lister is one of those writers. His songs on “Home” are recognisably blues/rock but with a recognition that the genre has to move on lyrically and musically. On “Home”, there are songs about the state of the music business today, an elegy to an old friend, a couple of brilliant covers and a tribute to Gene Hunt. What more do you want? This is one of those albums that grabs you from the first listen and doesn’t let go.
“Wrote a Song for Everyone” – John Fogerty
Ok, I’m going to admit to a slight bias here; I’ve been a fan of John Fogerty for much longer than I care to admit to. The first time I strapped on a guitar and played (badly) in front of an audience, the song the band played was the Creedence Clearwater Revival single, “Up Around the Bend”. I’m pleased to say that John Fogerty’s career as a performer has been much longer and more successful than mine.
There are a couple of ways of looking at this album; you can see it as a cynical rehash of old material for a few quick bucks or you can see it as an opportunity to work with kindred spirits to put a twenty-first century polish on some classic twentieth century songs. You can probably guess which way I’m leaning on this one. If you only listen to one song on this album, listen to “Hot Rod Heart”; John Fogerty is joined by guitarist Brad Paisley and the final minute and a half of the song is the joyous and totally self-indulgent sound of two superb players having a great time trading guitar licks. If this doesn’t make you smile, you don’t like music. And that’s before we get on to the reworkings of the classic Creedence songs “Lodi”, “Long as I can see the Light”, “Who’ll Stop the Rain” and the less well-known “Wrote a Song for Everyone”. Oh, nearly forgot, “Proud Mary”. Superb from start to finish.
“The Dirt Tracks” – The Dirt Tracks
If you’re really into music, it doesn’t matter how much you’ve heard, you still love it when you hear something original and fresh (and I’ll be completely honest and say something that no-one else has written about yet). My epiphany this year was an invitation to see Spanish indie band The Dirt Tracks in central London. The audience was four people, and that included me and the band’s manager. It didn’t bother the band because they pulled out a storming set. I was given a copy of the band’s debut album and I promised to review it. When I listened to it, I was hooked.
It’s heavily influenced by British indie, but there are elements of late ‘60s psychedelia in there as well as samples and a huge guitar attack. As if that wasn’t enough, the album includes the experimental single “Kaleidoscope” which combines two similar stand-alone songs across the stereo spectrum to create a third song. It’s quite a disorientating effect designed to demonstrate the difference between left- and right-brain processing and it’s even more impressive when you know that it’s written (like the rest of the album) in writer Santiago Coma’s second language. Very impressive debut album.
“Radio (in my) Head” – Various
This one deserves a special mention for overcoming logistical difficulties; there are artists from 14 different countries on this collection of reworkings of Radiohead songs. There’s absolutely no filler on this album and there are a few absolute corkers. Some of the versions stay reasonably close to the Radiohead template, while The Stoneface Travellers and Yoya put their own stamp on “My Iron Lung” and “Wolf at the Door” respectively. The project was initiated by John O’Sullivan, MD of Bandhouse Records and pulled in contributions from his contemporaries at the London College of Contemporary Music (including Amy Hannam and Beth Mills, who you may have seen on X Factor)and and a few others picked up on the journey. Anyway, it’s a bostin’ album and you should all give it a listen.
“Pale Green Ghosts” – John Grant
Our contributors at MusicRiot all have their own musical preferences and areas of expertise, but we’re all passionate about music and our paths tend to intersect fairly often; this is one of those cases. John Preston raved about this album several months before 6 Music latched on to John Grant and he was absolutely right; this is a great album. John Grant took a lot of flak over moving from acoustic instruments to electronic on this album (a nod to Dylan’s “Judas” moment there), but it’s still a classic singer-songwriter album. There are moments of humour, sneering, viciousness and painful emotional honesty on subjects as difficult as an HIV diagnosis. When it’s funny, it’s very funny, when it’s vicious, it’s very vicious and when it’s about honesty, it will make you cry. Even the remixes are worth a listen.
If you want to learn a bit more about these albums, you can search for the reviews on the site. Or you could give them a listen.
OK, I know I’ve already done my favourite five gigs of the year, but sometimes you see or hear something very special at a gig and it puts all of those cold nights on public transport or long drives to and from gigs into perspective; something which stops you in your tracks and makes you smile or cry or just amazes you. I’ve seen a few of those this year and I thought it would be rude not to share them. Once again, in no particular order, here they are.
Billy Walton is always likely to do something a bit special and he didn’t disappoint at The Buzz Club in Barnet in May. During a guitar solo, he dropped seamlessly into the guitar riff from the Led Zeppelin classic “Kashmir” for a few bars before nailing the intro to one of my teenage favourites “25 or 6 to 4”, recorded by Chicago before they discovered ballads. In true New Jersey tradition, the band locked in instantly while Billy gave it his best “Yeah, I did just do that” grin. Great fun and just a bit strange to hear a guitar solo featuring a fragment of a song that I loved when I was just starting to get into music seriously. You go to a Billy Walton gig, you expect the unexpected.
Paul Rose is one of those blues artists who’s well-known within the blues community but virtually unknown out of it; he’s also a great guitar player. He put together the Paul Rose All-Stars to record an album of standards and to tour the UK this year featuring a couple of ex-members of Was (Not Was), guitarist Randy Jacobs and singer Sweet Pea Atkinson. As a fan of Was (Not Was), that alone would have sold it to me but there was more to come. Towards the end of the set, the band launched into a storming version if the brilliant W(nW) Dallas motorcade song “11 MPH” played with much more attitude and venom than the original and it worked perfectly. I always love it when a band stamps its own personality on a cover and this was a stunning example.
The Kennedys show at Kings Place in London had a couple great moments. I’ve already mentioned “Rhapsody in Blue” elsewhere but there was another moment which was much more personal. Since reviewing The Kennedys album “Closer than you Know”, I couldn’t shake off Maura’s tribute to the late Alex Chilton, “Big Star Song”. It pushes most of my buttons with the Byrds/Merseybeat sus4 chords and a great melody as well as being a moving tribute to a pop legend. So, how pleased do you think I felt when they played the song? Dog with two tails doesn’t even come close, but then it got even better. Apparently The Kennedys don’t play “Big Star Song” live very often, so my experience was rare and special. Thank you Maura and Pete.
I always love to see musicians having a good time and most soloists enjoy trading licks with another player; it’s a challenge and a crowd pleaser. After playing a support set at the Garage in Islington, Aynsley Lister was brought back by headliner Joe Louis Walker to jam for a couple of songs and turned what had been a fairly standard back catalogue set into a highly entertaining sparring match between two players from different generations with a huge amount of mutual respect. Both players were obviously having a great time and the momentum carried on through the remainder of Joe Louis Walker’s set. The audience loved it and the musicians loved it; double bubble.
And finally, Bruce Springsteen and the E Street Band. As much as I love Bruce’s music, I had never seen him live before, mainly because I hate stadium and arena gigs, but I finally succumbed this year. Musically, the E Street Band have always been superb (just listen to the Hammersmith Odeon 1975 live album) but The Boss always keeps it fresh by throwing a few curve balls and there’s always a few bits of pure showbiz thrown in as well. At Hard Rock Calling in London this year, he pulled out two memorable and genuinely surprising moments when he brought his mum on stage to dance with him on “Dancing in the Dark” and then brought his sister, Pam, on to join him at the end of the set. These appearances were special because they were surprising and they emphasised the importance of family to Springsteen (including his extended Jersey shore family) and brought a couple of genuinely moving moments into the rock’n’roll circus.
You can keep your big screens, acrobatics, pyrotechnics and instrument smashing, it’s the prospect of moments like these that will make me jump on the train on a rainy Tuesday in January to go and watch a new band in 2014.
Here’s the first of our guest contribution for this year from someone whose album “Home” was a Riot Squad favourite this year. We were also lucky enough to see Aynsley support Joe Louis Walker at The Garage in Islington this year. You’ll probably notice that, in time-honoured “Spinal Tap” fashion, Aynsley takes the High Fives concept and goes one higher.
Caro Emerald – “Deleted Scenes from the Cutting Room Floor” (CD album)
This is a great ‘feel good’ album; it’s got a kind of jazzy feel to it with Caro’s voice and certain instrumental nods but it’s got some very clever elements and twists that bring it bang up to date. The grooves are hypnotic and the songs have some great hooks and melodies, very well written and put together. I regularly have it on when I’m cooking!!
Rory Gallagher – “Live in Cork” (concert DVD)
I first saw this concert when I was about fourteen and learnt all the songs and guitar parts note for note. Of course I moved onto other things and got into other guitarists and it wasn’t until recently that I watched it again for the first time in years. It made me feel the same as it did back then; it’s still probably the best live concert I’ve seen. Rory’s playing is just so melodic and tasteful and he never plays the same thing twice: plus his guitar tone is the best ever. It’s mainly a three piece band on this and they’re as tight as it gets….. but when Mark Feltham joins on harmonica for a few songs there are moments that are just killer: “Aint No Saint” and “Off the Handle”. Brilliant
Freddie King – live footage compilation (Rare DVD’s given to me by a friend)
I always listened to Freddie on my dad’s stereo but I’d never actually seen any live footage of him until recently. I was at a friend’s house and he put it on… It completely stopped me in my tracks! Watching the guy perform is a whole other thing to just hearing it on a stereo. He just had this amazing conviction and tremendous stage presence. He could hit one note and that’s all he needed, not to mention his singing which had an emotive intenseness that was easily up there with his guitar playing. Truly inspirational to watch; blues how it was meant to be performed!!
“Life on Mars” soundtrack music (DVD boxset)
I got into this series a couple of years back but sometimes I’ll just put it on for the music they used during the episodes. It’s all the music I remember growing up hearing on my dad’s stereo; stuff like The Sweet, T-Rex, Free, Cream, Thin Lizzy, Audience etc. I just love that late 60’s / 70’s vibe… before people spent months in studios making albums perfect with all the technology that’s around these days. This stuff just sounds earthy and real.
Ray Charles – “RAY” (The Film)
This is such a moving film and Jamie Fox really was the only guy who could have pulled this off. Very cleverly put together, it tells his story very well indeed. I’d always liked many of his songs and love his voice but it wasn’t until I saw this that I learnt so much about the man behind the music. I always find it interesting to learn about the actual people and what I got from this was that unlike so many artists out there, Ray Charles was a man who knew his worth and could stand on his own two feet.
“Still Crazy” (film)
I love any band-themed film and have seen most including the obligatory Spinal Tap but for me, this goes one better. It’s so much more believable on every level – the idea of a band that were once ‘almost famous’ getting back together after two decades apart. There’s the inevitable friction between certain members, the various ailments that old age has brought about etc. The really cool thing about this film is that it focuses on the personal lives of all the band members and there really are some classic moments: the bass player who is constantly on the run from a woman believed to be from the Inland Revenue, the lead singer’s ridiculous but believable pre-stage ritual – brilliant! I’ve probably seen it five or six times now!
