In the glovebox - Music in the car

 These discs below I've been listening to on my trips to and from my morning walks. They're an eclectic collection to accommodate most moods. 

Sometimes you just want a jolly upbeat start to the day and Ian Dury is your man.

A wordsmith of prodigious Cockney proportion, often tongue in cheek, sometimes outright salacious (Mash It Up Harry) sometimes achingly poignant (My Old Man) sometimes brutally hilarious (Hit Me With Your Rhythm Stick, Billericay Dickie) but always with a tale to tell, and backed by The Blockheads, a formidable band to colour his vision, mixing rock, funk, jazz, music hall and reggae. Sadly he passed in 2000 but his works live on.

And some mornings you just want straight up rock 'n roll and who best to deliver?

Beggars Banquet was the 1968 album which recovered the Rolling Stones' career from the flabby excesses of Their Satanic Majesties Request. Opening with the almighty Sympathy for The Devil, possibly Jagger's

best vocal performance and lyrics, then the prophetic No Expectations, ironically with Brian Jones ( a possible subject) on slide, the album dwells on various aspects of humanity's yoke, all sympathetically portrayed with a rejuvenated band on fire, supplemented by Nicky Hopkins on keyboards, and Jimmy Miller's production. The sound on the 50th anniversary edition is superb - the late Nicky is thanked for his contribution and long departed Rev Wilkins is acknowledged as the writer of Prodigal Song - previously Jagger/ Richards, an old Stones joke...

I bought their live set El Mocambo from 1977, the basis of their earlier Love You Live, but this is the total show released in 2022 and it's wonderful. A small club, audience of 300, old rockers mixed with songs from their recent Black and Blue with Billy Preston on organ, original member Ian Stewart on piano and additional percussion from Ollie Brown, it's a steamer!

And sometimes you just need something different - Mulatos has been in the car for a few years now, as have the two beneath it. Omar Sosa is a jazz pianist from Cuba, and this album is from 2004 and was remixed for the dance floor, it's tunes and rhythms being cool and compelling. 

I do love soul and Sam and Dave were two of the best exponents, their music being well favoured by the black audience. Love those gritty harmonies, those Mar-Key horns, that production, the drum sound at Stax in Memphis, backed by Booker T & the MGs, engineered by Jim Miller and recorded live in one take, it was visceral, real. Hold On, I'm Comin'... Other artists -  Otis Redding, Wilson Pickett, Aretha, Carla Thomas - wonderful, oh yeah not forgetting Ray Charles, Sam Cooke and James Brown, the innovators. 

This double album has the best sound, I have another album, a re-recording, nowhere near as good.

Dave Brubeck was a great jazz composer and pianist. The album Time Out has been in my collection since 1965. The Ken Burns Jazz compilation box set accompanies the excellent TV documentary series issued in 2000. Aside from the compilation, single disc CDs were also released for major artists and this is one.  The 2 CD Essential covers similar ground adding more. The early tunes are just as spectacular as the later material, showing his rhymical complexity - check out the 1953 Le Souk recorded live, Brubeck's piano is stunning. 

 

This double CD below was gifted to me by Steve Fox from Raw Art & Blues in the town of Mogo

in 2007, after he learned that my music collection had been incinerated along with our house in the 2003 bushfire here in Canberra. It was such a generous gift and one which I tried to repay by advertising his wonderful musical and artistic wares on my Mystery Train radio program. Sadly the village of Mogo was decimated by bushfire in 2019. Steve Fox had departed for another business enterprise well prior. The CDs are packed with rare tracks, some being from the sole recording, some on acetate, unissued; the sound generally is very good. You can read Steve's dedication to me below; such a kind man.

Some mornings you just need a brain scraper, which Jimi will provide. This generous box set was first issued in 2000, then again with 4 extra tracks and better sound to my ears, in 2013. 

Jimi recorded prolifically, he loved to create and his recordings both studio and live, always explore. No two are the same and that's fortunate for the Hendrix family who have released many albums since his death, and mostly all are really good IMHO, great notes, photos, production and of course fab tracks.

This one was the first box set, the 2013 second version, and it's a cracker with alternative versions, fabulous live tracks and rarities.  This is the indulgence after the main course.

JS Bach's Brandenburg Concertos are wonderous, pure music, harmonies, colour and rhythm in six different settings, here with an added two orchestral suites. I have a number of performances but I love the sound of this one by the Berlin Philharmonic conducted by Herbert Von Karajan. Karl Grebe in his notes states that the Brandenburg Concertos, among all Bach's works, 'have attained the greatest popularity and universal recognition. Nevertheless they remain what they always have been: a precious possession and a musical treasury in which there are always fresh delights to be discovered.'

 

 

Books read and enjoyed 2024/5

 

These are books I've read over the past year or so, each one an experience. More below.

Long Island by Colm Toibin is a much lauded 2024 novel,  and the follow up to his award winning Brooklyn from 2009 - he's written others in the interim eg. The Testament of Mary which was shortlisted for the Booker Prize, his third shortlist.  

Sebastian Barry, like Colm Toibin, is now an elder statesman for Irish literature, both poets and playwrights as well as novelists, both appointed as Laureates for Irish Fiction by the Irish Arts Council.  Old God's Time, like Long Island, is beautifully written and also an emotional journey.

Normal People is the second novel by Irish author Sally Rooney, published in 2018 when she was 27.  It has garnered a swag of awards and plaudits. Like her debut, Conversations With Friends, it explores modern relationships, self awareness, being articulate yet completely dumb, with a backdrop of feminism and social divide. I read it in a couple of days, was smitten. 

Booker Prize winner Prophet Song by Paul Lynch is yet another dystopian novel this month, the other being Juice by Tim Winton. Juice was about the results of climate change not being addressed. Prophet Song has been compared to George Orwell's 1984 and like that book it is about life within a fascist state - secret police, imprisonment, torture and control, in Ireland of all places, and the effects on a normal suburban family.  Eilish Stack is the wife of a teacher Larry, who is also the trade union representative. Following a visit from the GNSB, Larry disappears. The book is about Eilish's fight to keep her family together. It's not an easy read, being stark with long paragraphs and no quotation marks, but it is your nightmare, gripping and harrowing, there's no denying it, and you are compelled to find out what happens. 

All or Nothing is the title of a Small Faces hit from 1966. The lead singer and songwriter, with Ronnie Lane, was Steve Marriott. Led Zep frontman Robert Plant 'wanted to be Steve Marriott'. David Bowie rated him as 'the best vocalist this country has produced'. He auditioned for The Stones tp replace Mick Taylor, but Mick and possibly Keith too felt threatened (also Marriott who was known for his motor mouth just wouldn't shut up - the band realised he couldn't possibly be contained). Dylan described him as 'an amazing talent'. The book is authorised by his family, yet it comes warts and all. A fascinating read if you are a Small Faces and Humble Pie fan. It takes the form of quotes from associates and family, with editorial inserts. In the end, an irrepressible personality and exceptional talent burned through rock 'n roll excesses. 

Tim Winton's Juice is a far more sobering read. It describes a world of the future which has resulted from little action on climate change, in order to keep the fossil barons happy. It's a compulsive read, a love story with tragedy and drama, a Nemesis group hunting the descendants of those responsible, hunters becoming hunted, it's a story of hope shining through desolation, and it may be our story. 

Killing Commendatore by Haruki Murakami was released in 2018, in the English translation. He's since released another. Murakami employs magical realism, nothing is as it seems, the scenery changes, metaphors and symbolisms arise, there may be a well, a cat, a bird, a jazz cafe, 60's music, adolescence, all are props in Murakami's world. His style is relaxed and beguiles the reader. This book seems to have varied reviews. I enjoyed it very much but his best for me so far are IQ84, The Wind Up Bird Chronicle, and Kafka On The Shore. That said, you will be absorbed by any Murakami book - except for me, Norwegian Wood. Why? I was underwhelmed. I don't know, maybe I was expecting more, many liked it and it made his popularity in the West. 

Nora by Brenda Maddox is the biography of Nora Barnacle, who became the wife of James Joyce, 'just another Dublin jackeen chatting up a country girl', as she said. Nora Barnacle? Love that name. She had been dismissed by the literati, the academics as a Galway hick, unworthy of Joyce's genius. Maddox, through much investigation portrays Nora as a strong, articulate wife/partner, Joyce's 'piece of Ireland', his muse and source for dialogue/language in Ulysses and Finnegan's Wake. 'She was amusing, passionate, courageous, spontaneous and articulate: she talked and talked. Joyce listened and listened, and put her voice into all his major female characters'. Maddox states that she began the book liking Nora, and finished it in awe of her.     

I posted a poem about the tragedy of 'Jim' and Nora's daughter Lucia Joyce in November 2023. Explanatory notes follow the poem.

https://barrymcgloin.blogspot.com/2023/11/lucia-joyce-was-daughter-of-nora.html

The Love Object - Selected Stories by Edna O'Brien

This lady could really write - sadly she passed last year at 93 -, and despite much resistance in her early career from the Irish church establishment who banned and burned her books, and her husband who claimed that he had written them, she persisted and won through, became famous and renowned as a great writer, beloved in many countries but especially honoured in Ireland, a land of great writers. A poke in the eye to those hidebound puritan detractors, hah, imagine how they might feel with Sally Rooney's books?  Yes, Edna was a trailblazer.

She was brave, steadfast, a line through from James Joyce whose biography she wrote.  A line that was needed to cut through the false piety of religious dogma, the patriarchal 'thou shalt not' of those black and white sinful identifiers, and the seemingly inevitable eternal damnation of a woman's being. It was a ruthless, gruesome and cruel myth. 

I also read her 2015 book The Little Red Chairs which was a stunner, described by Philip Roth as 'her masterpiece', this when she was 84! 

 https://barrymcgloin.blogspot.com/2024/07/

Hamnet by Maggie O'Farrell

This is the most enjoyable novel I have read recently.

A fictional story based upon the actual son of William Shakespeare, who was named Hamnet, who died in his youth, and the relationship between him and his parents, and the grief that came from his death. Wonderful historical fiction in beautiful poetic prose, better than any of her previous writings. 

I loved it so much that I bought her follow up, also an historical novel called The Marriage Portrait, and enjoyed it almost as much. She's a lovely writer. 

Author David Mitchell called it "A thing of shimmering wonder."

Klara and The Sun by Kazuo Ishiguro

I'm interested in AI, particularly in its future use as robot humans in fact I've written a couple of short stories on the subject.  Time: The Act explores exploitation of robot humans, it also explores the question of reciprocal feelings, emotions and the responsibilities of humane management. 

https://barrymcgloin.blogspot.com/2024/11/time-act.html

The Japanese/English Nobel and Booker prize winning author Kazuo Ishiguro is noted for his quiet understated style, each word in its place, but there's always more beneath.  A beautifully written book, a quick read with depth and emotion, and thought for the future. 

The Map and The Clock by Carol Ann Duffy and Gillian Clarke

I do love poetry anthologies. I have some of the best - the two collections from Ted Hughes and Seamus Heaney, The Rattle Bag and The School Bag, Sean O'Brien's The Firebox (Poetry in Britain and Ireland since 1945), Staying Alive and Being Human edited by Neil Astley.  Paul Kelly's selection Love Is Strong is also a fine collection, The Making of a Poem by Mark Strand and Eavan Boland, and lately Poetry Unbound by Padraig 'O Tuama, which is 50 modern poems all unpacked with commentary by Padraig.

Carol Ann Duffy is my current favourite poet. Previously the Poet Laureate, and Gillian Clarke is the National Poet of Wales. Together they have edited this fine and lively collection of British and Irish poems which starts with the earliest known written poem Caedmon's Hymn from around 600AD, translated by Paul Durcan, through numerous Anons to 'the emerging Zaffar Kunial', with living poets having one poem apiece. It is a major piece of work, up there with Ted Hughes and Seamus Heaney who are both well represented here.  You will be pleasantly surprised by many selections. Praise is superfluous.  

Lastly, one of my favourite authors passed on in 2024, C.J. Sansome who wrote the Shardlake series about a hunch backed lawyer who solves mysterious crimes in medieval days. Sansome himself was a lawyer prior to becoming a writer and his insight adds to his writing skills. The research is meticulous and medieval days are smelt and felt in etched realism, mud and dung, smoke and clamour, incense and hymns, with a background of violence and brutality, pious priests and lopped heads and swords scraping on bone. The almighty power of Church and State. Oh, there's a few balancing romances in there too.

I read the final Shardlake book recently called Tombland. It's a door stopper. I'd read some Amazon reviews which suggested that it wasn't up with his best - total codswallop, some like to critisise because it strokes their perceived superiority. It must be sad. Fear not, Tombland will have you enthralled through its 860 or so pages of novel, followed by a 50 page essay and bibliography of his sources. 

  

 

Blackbirds

 

Blackbirds

There is a lull this evening when the world

holds its breath, the rain has stopped and the sun's

warm rays embrace all then slowly slip away

and colours in the garden become richer, deeper

and that's when our blackbird sings, five notes

five notes again, then seven then five,

piercing and startling the air

in clear brightening joy.

I recall a village in the Cotswolds

where we slept in a sandstone cottage,

golden in the late afternoon sun,

and the back garden with its rock wall looked

onto a field where rabbits hopped and a blackbird's

song shimmered the air into the evening. We ate

at a table flush with prosciutto and local cheeses

and toasted our travels with fine Merlot.

Now, I just read about those Russian missile

and drone attacks on a children's hospital in Kyiv.

One young lass with her hand blown off, another a leg.

Deformed for life. How brave you warriors

must feel... A crow caws to the falling night.

Merlot – French - the little blackbird