Thomas Fraser Stormin' on the Deep Blue Sea

Pink Moon

It was a cold rainy Saturday morning today and I was sitting in the kitchen and staring out the window watching a robin on my bird table when there was a knock on my door. It was the postman with a package for me. It contained a book called Pink Moon, A Story About Nick Drake by Gorm Henrik Rasmussen. I was really pleased because I only ordered it yesterday. It was recommended to me by a friend after he had read my mention of another Nick Drake book in my blog on Tuesday.

After only reading fifty pages this afternoon I can see he is absolutely right. Pink Moon was the first book written about Nick Drake in 1980 although it didn’t get a publisher until 1986. That was because of the lack of interest in him in those days. The legend hadn’t begun to grow. Even then, the book was only published in Denmark. It wasn’t until 2007 that the author was approached by Bent Sorenson who offered to translate it into English because he thought it was the best book about Nick that had been written.

The author decided to rewrite the book and he revealed lots more personal material. What makes this book so interesting is that Gorm Henrik Rasmusson actually met Nick’s parents Molly & Rodney. Firstly in 1979 and kept in touch with them for eight years afterwards. Therefore, you can trust that the information in this book is real and truthful. If you are a Nick Drake fan and want to learn more, then this is the book for you.

Lesley Duncan - Love Song

Jackie DeShannon & Van Morrison.

At the moment I am listening to an album called Jackie by Jackie DeShannon. It is a really nice album. I only bought it because of the Van Morrison connection.  I knew that Jackie had sung backing vocals on a couple of Van's albums and had co-written the song Santa Fe which appeared on Van's Wavelength album. One of my favourite Van songs is Warm Love on the album Hard Nose The Highway on which Jackie sings backing vocals. In the song Van sings, You can bring your guitar along, we'll sing some songs and have some fun. Surely it would be Van who would bring his guitar along. Who is this guitar playing singer he is referring to? Could it be Jackie herself? This got me wondering about Jackie so I investigated further. I knew a bit about her already. She had a top ten hit with What The World Needs Now Is Love and had written hits for The Searchers and Bette Davis Eyes which Kim Carnes had a huge hit with. She had appeared with The Beatles on their first USA tour and in England she had a brief relationship with a young guitarist called Jimmy Page and wrote and recorded with Jimmy.

Jackie & Jimmy Page.

Looking through her discography I noticed that she had made an album in 1972 simply called Jackie and I was interested to see that one of the songs was I Wanna Roo You which was written by Van. What amazed me though was that this album was reissued in 2003 with twelve bonus tracks and four of them were written by Van of which I had never heard of two of them before. As well as some of Jackie's own compositions there are covers of songs by John Prine, Neil Young, Steve Goodman and Drift Away which was a big hit for Dobie Gray and five Van Morrison songs.

Jackie playing Monopoly with George Harrison.

It is the Van songs that I want to talk about. The cover of I Wanna Roo You is quite pleasant and better than the Goldie Hawn version that I have on an album. The other four Van songs were produced by Van for his Caledonia Productions and recorded in Los Angeles on April 11 and 12 1973. They are Sweet Sixteen which was actually released as a single, Flamingos Fly which Van later released himself on A Period Of Transition and The Philosophers Stone album. I think Jackie's version is really good,If you scroll down you can hear it, Santa Fe which they co-wrote and The Wonder Of You which is excellent. Listening carefully to these tracks I am quite certain that it is Van on backing vocals.

Jackie DeShannon - Flamingos Fly ( 1973 )

Van Morrison - Before the World Was Made.wmv

CRANBERRIES - Yeats Grave [New York 1994]