The Sun Ain't Gonna Shine Anymore.

Following the sad news yesterday of the death of Scott Walker many people have paid tribute to him on social media by sharing the Walker Brothers song from 1966 called The Sun Ain’t Gonna Shine Anymore. Even the BBC played it on the TV News last night. It is a great song. It was first recorded by Frankie Valli and was a bit of a flop but when the Walker Brothers re-recorded it with a Phil Spector type wall of sound arrangement it reached Number 1 in the UK charts in March 1966. I like the song, but whenever I hear it, I am reminded of a very grisly tale.

One evening in March 1966 two men entered the Blind Beggar pub on Whitechapel Road in Whitechapel in the East End of London. One of them was George Cornell and the other was an associate by the name of Albie Woods. George Cornell was well known in London’s gangland as an ‘enforcer’ for a notorious gang called The Richardsons. It was outside the Blind Beggar that William Booth gave his first sermon which led to the creation of the Salvation Army but the events that followed on that fateful March night 53 years ago were far from Christian. Cornell and Woods ordered two Light Ales and sat on stools at the bar. The barmaid put a song on the record player which was the latest hit by the Walker Brothers.

They were approached by Ronnie Kray and another man by the name of Ian Barrie. There had been a feud between the Richardson's and the Kray's since an incident the previous Christmas at the Astor Club when Cornell had referred to Ronnie as ‘a fat poof’. This caused a gang war which resulted in the death of Richard Hart, a Kray gang associate at Mr Smith’s Club in Catford. Ronnie was out for revenge. When he was approached, George Cornell sneered and said sarcastically, "Well, just look who's here". In order to tell the barmaid and the other clientele it was time to scarper, Barrie fired his gun into the ceiling while Ronnie calmly walked towards George, took out a 9 mm Mauser, and shot him once in the top of the forehead, above his right eye. The bullet went straight through his head and hit the record player which got stuck in a groove and repeated over and over ‘The sun ain’t gonna shine anymore, anymore, anymore’.

George was taken to hospital where he died a few hours later. Ronnie and Barrie made a sharp exit to a waiting car. They were seen both outside and inside the pub by several witnesses, but nobody would testify to the police about what had happened. It was to be 3 years until Ronnie Kray was finally found guilty of George’s murder and sentenced to life imprisonment. His brother Reggie was also found guilty and sent down for life for murdering Jack ‘The Hat’ McVitie, who was killed the year after Cornell. Ronnie died in Broadmoor Hospital in 1995 and Reggie in 2000 just a few weeks after being released. They were probably the most notorious brothers in British criminal history. That is why I can’t listen to The Sun Ain’t Gonna Shine Anymore without being reminded of the terrible events of that night in The Blind Beggar.

Scott Walker.

Monday morning: I woke up today to the sad news that Scott Walker has passed away aged 76. I can’t claim to be a big Scott Walker fan because I haven’t got any of his albums and never seen him perform apart from on television. I have always respected him though for turning his back on the trappings of fame and show-business and just creating his avant-garde art regardless of whether it was fashionable or commercial. I didn’t particularly care for his work with The Walker Brothers although they were very popular especially in Britain. It was his early solo career that I will remember, with songs like Joanna and Lights Of Cincinnati. I really liked his interpretations of songs by Jacques Brel, especially Jackie which was a big hit in Britain, also Mathilde, If You Go Away, Amsterdam, & Next . This morning I was listening to The Seventh Seal which was based on a film by Ingmar Bergman. Scott Walker has certainly left a great body of work and a legacy to be proud of. I think his reputation will continue to grow in the years ahead.

                                                                                                                                                                                

Van Morrison. The Healing Game. 3cd Deluxe Set.

HMV in Bath.

It is Sunday morning; the sun is shining and I’m listening to my new 3cd deluxe set of The Healing Game by Van Morrison. I bought it in the HMV record store in Bath yesterday afternoon. This shop had closed recently but a Canadian business man stepped in and saved it and it has re-opened. I’m pleased about that because a great city like Bath deserves to have a good music shop. When I was served at the counter the man said they had been playing it in the shop and he liked it. I told him Van was playing in Bath on June 2^nd. He knew that and said he would be going. It should be a great day seeing Van in one of his old stamping grounds, especially if the weather is nice.

Disc 1 is called The Original Album…Plus.  Is it really twenty-two years since this album came out? It seems only yesterday that Kim went away for a week to Torquay with her residents from work.  When she returned she had bought me Van's new album. I thought at the time that it was a huge return to form after the disappointment of Tell Me Something and How Long Has This Been Going On? when I thought Van had just been treading water for a couple of years. In the 22 years since this album came out Van has written some great songs and released some excellent albums, but I don’t think he ever again quite reached the brilliance of The Healing Game. About the album, I think the rough god referred to in the opening track has something to do with a Yeats poem or it might be about Van having a go at the press who gave him a hard time the previous year. Fire In The Belly has the same title as a book by Sam Keen. I don't know if that’s where Van got the idea from, but I like hearing 'Gotta get through January, gotta get through February' on a nice sunny morning in March. This Weight is Van complaining about the weight of being famous and all he wants is anonymity. The Waiting Game is a great song with mysterious lyrics such as ‘I am the brother of the snake’. It’s a great song even if it is an enigma inside a mystery. It also incorporates one of Vans favourite images of leaves coming tumbling down. 

Piper At The Gates Of Dawn is based as you know on Wind In The Willows by Kenneth Grahame. It is very Irish in flavour featuring Van’s old friends Phil Coulter and Paddy Moloney. It was commissioned for a film by Terry Jones of Monty Python fame but wasn’t used so it ended up on this album and makes a nice contrast to the heavier songs. Burning Ground is a powerful song driven along by some awesome sax playing by Pee Wee and Leo Green. I have read lots of discussion between Van fans over the years about the meaning of the lyrics such as ‘Dump the jute’. It Once Was My Life has a very 1950’s feel to it. Then we get to one of Van's all-time great songs Sometimes We Cry which is a masterpiece. From Alec Dankworth’s opening notes on the bass to Pee Wee's exquisite solo and Robin’s piano playing it is faultless. I met Pee Wee once when he played in a pub in Bradford On Avon and he signed my Healing Game CD booklet on the Sometimes We Cry page and he put 'Thanks, Pee Wee Ellis’. If You Love Me is another 1950’s style song before the tour de force of the title track The Healing Game which is another of Vans greatest songs. I first heard it a year previously at Wembley Arena when Van appeared with Ray Charles. Of the bonus tracks, I sometimes think Look What The Good People Done is about Van’s friend George Best. There is a reference to the Wogan TV show on which George made a notorious drunken appearance. At The End Of The Day is a Van song that I can’t remember hearing before. It was a track on a cd single. I never have rated the Full Force Gale 96 remake all that much. I do like the version of St Dominic’s Preview included here. It is from a compilation album called Sult and produced by Donal Lunny. I wish they had included another song that Van recorded around this time with Paddy Moloney called Celtic Spring.

Disc 2 is called Sessions & Collaborations. There are three more alternate versions of The Healing Game here including one with John Lee Hooker. I really like the alternate version of Fire In The Belly which shows off the delicate piano playing of Robin Aspland to great effect. Didn’t He Ramble is a great song of Van’s that is previously unissued, maybe because the lyrics evolved into The Philosophers Stone. The full length eight minutes of Sometimes We Cry is fabulous. I have never been all that keen on Muleskinner Blues of which there are two versions here, one with Lonnie Donegan. I don’t think I have ever heard A Kiss To Build A Dream On before. It is a song first made famous by Louis Armstrong and recorded by many other people. The two songs with Van’s friend John Lee Hooker Don’t Look Back and The Healing Game are great. I bet Van enjoyed working with John Lee. He seems to have had a great time recording with Carl Perkins as well. There are five songs all recorded on March 27^th, 1996 just down the road from here at the Wool Hall in Beckington. It sounds like they had great fun and Carl loved the sound of that saxophone. The sad thing is that Carl died less that two years later in January 1998.

Disc 3 is called Live At Montreux 19 July 1997. It is a recording that is well known to Van fans as a bootleg but it’s great to hear it finally on an official release. The sound quality is excellent, and Van and the band are on top form. The band all deserve a mention, Georgie Fame, Ronnie Johnson, Geoff Dunn, Nicky Scott, Robin Aspland, Pee Wee Ellis, Leo Green, Matt Holland & Brian Kennedy.  Hearing this performance again brings lots of memories flooding back because we saw Van at Glastonbury just three weeks prior to this Montreux show and they performed all these songs if my memory serves me well. It had rained nonstop since Friday and the site was a quagmire. The sun came out on Sunday afternoon though in time for performances by Sting, Beck and Van. Van started his performance with Rough God Goes Riding, the opening track on this disc. The lyrics seemed strangely appropriate referring to the 'mud splattered victims' which was us. I remember that performance vividly because during Van singing 'Its A Man’s, Man’s, Man’s World' he stopped and asked the audience "Who is the godfather of soul?”. Quick as a flash I shouted out "James Brown”, “That’s right”, said Van. Lots of people looked at me and I felt quite brainy although I expect lots of other people also shouted it out as well. Van closed that show with a slowed down version of Burning Ground, lifting the mike stand above his shoulders before finally smashing it down on the stage and walking off in triumph with the applause of at least 50,000 people ringing in his ears.

I’m tired now after a most enjoyable morning of listening to The Healing Game for three hours and writing about it. The sun is still shining. I might go to the pub to unwind. See you later.

Birds Requiem.

My Clematis running wild.

Thursday morning: I was up and about quite early today. I ventured out into my garden to feed my fishes and my feathered friends. The clematis looks amazing, in full bloom and climbing all over my fence and my little shed. The camellias have got quite a few flowers on them as well. I potted those sunflowers far too early though. I put them out on my bench to toughen them up, but I can’t risk planting them yet because of the fear of frost. After I had done the washing up and a couple of other bits of housework that I’ve neglected lately, I sat in the kitchen to give full attention to my new album which was recommended to me by a friend of mine.

It is called Birds Requiem by Dhafer Youssef. He was born in a small fishing village in Tunisia in 1967 and moved to Europe in 1990 to pursue a career in Jazz. He is a singer and Oud player. I didn’t know what an Oud was, so I looked it up. It is a short-necked stringed instrument very similar to a lute. This album was recorded in Gothenburg Sweden & Istanbul in 2013. I didn’t know what to expect. I thought it would be mainly North African type instruments but apart from the Oud and the Kanun (A Kanun is a stringed instrument, a bit like a zither or a psaltery) there are clarinets, trumpets, electric guitars, electronics, piano, double bass and drums. Four of the tracks are part of a suite called Birds Requiem. I must say the vocals of Dhafer Youssef are quite astounding, he can hold a note for an eternity. 

An Oud.

The voice is used as a major instrument to stunning effect. I love the piano playing of Kristjan Randalu particularly on track 2 called Sweet Blasphemy. Some tracks such as Blending Souls And Shades I would describe as jazz-rock. While I was listening to the music, I was aware of the birds singing in my garden. It wasn’t a distraction, I liked it, they seemed to complement the music. The music was about birds after all. Track 5 was called Whira and is an elegy for Dhafer’s mother. I loved the delicate double bass playing. The intro to Track 7 called 39th Gulay really rocked out. That track is dedicated to the city of Istanbul where east meets west, and this album certainly does that as well. Seudah is dedicated to Jon Hassell who is a trumpet player influenced by Miles Davis. He is also influenced by minimalism & World Music. Jon Hassell has worked with Terry Riley whose Rainbow In Curved Air I bought last year. That is all further evidence for everything being connected as I said recently.

A Kanun.

 I also enjoyed track 10 which is called Ascetic Journey. As you know Asceticism is a journey towards spiritual transformation, where the simple is sufficient and the bliss is within. This album proves that is true on many tracks. In fact, some parts of the album reminded me of the Tony Scott album for Zen Meditation that I was listening to recently, where less is more, and you can enjoy the silences between the notes as much as the music itself. Silence becomes an art form if it is nicely framed. The final track Whirling Birds Ceremony I had heard once before on YouTube and I liked it so much I decided to buy the album. If you scroll down you can listen to it and judge for yourself. I think you will agree that it is brilliant.

Dhafer Youssef.

Dhafer Youssef - Whirling Birds Ceremony

Mustt Mustt

Mustt Mustt.

When I got up this morning, I spent the first half an hour just staring out of the kitchen door at all the comings and goings. The blue tits seem to have definitely taken up lodgings in the bird box. They were flying to and fro with great beakfuls of nesting material. I will issue them with a rent book in due course! When I finally got motivated, I went for a walk up town because I didn’t set foot outside the house yesterday and I had run out of food. On the way back from the supermarket I had a look in the Sue Ryder shop. I was pleased to find two nice books. The first is called Kiss Me, Judas by Will Christopher Baer. It is a first USA edition from 1998. I had never heard of him before, but I bought it because it was only £1.00 and also it was signed. 

When I got home, I looked him up on Wikipedia and it says he is an American author of neo-noir fiction. He published a trilogy of novels in five years beginning with Kiss me, Judas and hasn’t published anything since. He has quite a cult following apparently. The book is about a detective called Phineas Poe who wakes up one morning to find that one of his kidneys has been removed and replaced with a bag of heroin. Crikey! If you look on eBay you will see that some people in the USA are asking up to £70 for a signed copy of this book. I wonder if I’m the only person in the UK with a signed copy? Anyway, I think it was a good find. The other book was a first UK edition of South And West by Joan Didion. I have heard of Joan Didion because I have another book by her called Slouching Towards Bethlehem. The book I found recounts her travels in Mississippi, Alabama & Louisiana in the 1970’s. In a review for The Guardian, Peter Conrad noted that Didion describes the South as "a metaphorical landscape, America’s heart of darkness"; "colonial, obsessed with disparities of “race, class, heritage”"; and its wilderness as "rank, malevolent, encroaching everywhere”. Anyway, it had to be worth a £1.00.

It is afternoon now and I am chilling out to an album that arrived a few days ago. It is called Mustt Mustt, by Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan. When I wrote my piece about the healing power of music a couple of weeks ago. I mentioned Sufi music and two of my friends whose views I respect made suggestions. Bent Sorenson recommended that I check out Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan, so I did, and I ordered this CD. I must must! say I love it. It is the first Qawwali fusion album collaboration between singer Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan and guitarist and producer Michael Brook, although the album is credited purely to Khan. It was Peter Gabriel who suggested that Brook and Khan work together. It was released in 1990 on Gabriel's Real-World Records label. It was recorded just down the road from here at Real World studios in Box.  As soon as I heard the opening title track, I liked it. It is very danceable which must be why it was remixed by Massive Attack and was a club hit in the United Kingdom, being the first song in Urdu to reach the British charts. It was later used in an advert for Coca-Cola.

Nasrat Fateh Ali Khan.

Many people consider this as a classic album. Mustt Mustt was voted one of the Top 100 albums of the 1990s by American music magazine Alternative Press. It reached #14 on the Billboard Top World Music Albums chart in 1991. David Lynch of The Austin Chronicle called the album a "seminal fusion". British musician Nitin Sawhney said that it "changed the face of British music forever". It is considered a "secularized" or "Western" version of Khan's other Qawwali albums. Thank you very much to Bent Sorenson because I am really pleased I discovered the music of Nasrat Fateh Ali Khan. Later in the week I’ll let you know what I think of Birds Requiem by Dhafer Youssef.

A message from Krishnamurti for March 20th.

The Rainy Streets Of Bath.

Great Pulteney Street.

 The weather was a lot better yesterday so I thought I’d have a look around Bath for a couple of hours because it is such a great place and there is always something to see. Outside the abbey there was a lady busking and singing jazz. She was very good, and I listened for a couple of songs. When she finished What A Wonderful World by Louis Armstrong I threw some change in her bucket and she said, “Thank you very much”. She told me that this was the first time she had ever busked in her life. I asked if she knew any Van Morrison songs. She didn’t, but asked what song I was thinking of. “Well, Moondance is tailor made for you”, I replied. She promised to learn it for next time. I’ll look out for her next time I’m in Bath.

Then, as usual I looked in a couple of charity shops. I was pleased to find a very nice biography of Celine. No, not Celine Dion!,  this is the French writer Louis-Ferdinand Celine (1894-1961) His book Mort Au Credit (Death On The Instalment Plan) is one of my favourite novels. He was very influential on the likes of Henry Miller, Kurt Vonnegut and the Beat Generation. After that I got bored with charity shops. I had a look in the Victoria Art Gallery, but I got bored with that as well because I  have seen it all before. They had something special on called The Sharmanka Travelling Circus, but you had to pay to see that which I wasn’t prepared to do.

The sky had turned dark and it was drizzling rain when I emerged from there. I crossed Pulteney Bridge and I thought I would have a look in the Holburne Museum which I could see in the distance. In all the years I have lived in this area I’d never been in there. It is a beautiful Georgian building and I’m glad I went in. There are some fabulous 18^th & 19^th century British paintings including works by the likes of Gainsborough, Stubbs & Turner. I ended up chatting to one of the staff for about half an hour. I should mention the gardens as well which are known as Sydney Gardens and are the only original 18^th century pleasure gardens still surviving in Britain. They provided a favourite walk for Jane Austen when she lived in nearby Sydney Place and feature in her novel Northanger Abbey.

As well as their permanent collection there was also a special exhibition on by a contemporary British artist called George Shaw. I had never heard of him before but was very impressed. He was born in 1966 and brought up in the Tile Hill area of Coventry which features in a lot of his paintings. He is unusual in that his favourite medium is Humbrol enamel paints which are best known for painting model airplanes. The paintings are very detailed and on first glance could be mistaken for photographs. Urban decay and neglect seem to feature in many of the works. One work I was very taken with depicted an art-deco style pub that was built in the 1930’s to serve a local estate but now abandoned and derelict.

Sunrise Over The Care-home by George Shaw.

 Another work showed an English flag fluttering defiantly on a flag pole behind a high security fence which is obviously a statement about modern Britain. Some of the paintings do have that Edward Hopper feeling of loneliness and alienation. Some works also had a David Hockney type feel to them. I tried to take some photos, but the staff told me that I wasn’t allowed to for copyright reasons. That seems a bit silly to me because you can find his paintings quite easily on the internet. I didn’t argue with them because they were all volunteers and nice people. I had to content myself with buying a couple of postcards in the gift shop. It was gone 4.00 when I left and I scurried along the rainy wide pavements of Great Pulteney Street and headed for the station and that was the end of my afternoon in Bath.

Ash Wednesday 8.00am by George Shaw.