From the Vaults

The Fair Sect Plus One: I Love How You Love Me (1967)

10 Oct 2022 | 1 min read | 1

Occasionally at the Herald, when I had written something about a Sixties rock band in New Zealand or a story about clubs of that era, one of the subs Trevor would come over for a chat. He was a man of few words most of the time but in these instances he'd have some wry observation or tightly delivered anecdote which made it clear he had been there at the time. Once, in passing in some... > Read more

Marc Ribot: The Wind Cries Mary (1990)

3 Oct 2022 | <1 min read | 1

Marc Ribot has long been the guitarist of choice for Tom Waits, Elvis Costello and others, but he was also in a couple of interesting if not influential bands of his own. Before being one of the Lounge Lizards (alongside John Lurie), the New Jersey-born Ribot played in bands behind touring soul acts (Wilson Pickett etc) but it was his work with Waits from the mid Eighties which brought hm... > Read more

Paper Knife: title unknown (1996?)

15 Sep 2022 | 1 min read

At some time in the mid Nineties while in Tokyo I ambled through Yoyogi Park where the Fifites rock'n'roll stylists slick back their hair and dance to old Elvis, and girls and boys alike dress like manga-mad characters. It is a vibrant and slightly circus-like atmosphere -- and that was where I saw Paper Knife, two young and slightly uncomfortable guys with guitars and a beat box of drum... > Read more

Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers: Something in the Air (1993)

5 Sep 2022 | <1 min read

The late Tom Petty knew a lot of rock history, having been inspired by the blues and the British Invasion in addition to Southern rock. Which is why on the four CD Live Anthology released in 2009 we find covers of I'm a Man, Diddy Wah Diddy, I Just Want to Make Love to You, Grateful Dead's Friend of the Devil, Green Onions, Fleetwood Mac's Oh Well and the theme to Goldfinger. And this very... > Read more

The Rolling Stones: 20 Nil (1997, bootleg)

29 Aug 2022 | <1 min read

This was one of the songs the Stones recorded in Ocean Way Studio in Los Angeles for what became their Bridges to Babylon album. It was an interesting, late career album -- and not just because they worked with the Dust Brothers, Don Was and others as a production tag-team. The single Anybody Seen My Baby? actually got serious radio play, the excellent video featured Angelina Jolie as a... > Read more

Sebastian Cabot: Like a Rolling Stone (1967)

22 Aug 2022 | <1 min read | 2

Portly English actor Sebastian Cabot was best known for his role as Mr Giles French, the "gentleman's gentleman" (butler etc), in the long-running late Sixties US sitcom Family Affair alongside Brian Keith (as his master). With his commanding English accent he was also in demand for voice-over work and -- like David Niven before him -- became the go-to guy when Hollywood needed... > Read more

Joel Grey: White Room (1969)

15 Aug 2022 | <1 min read

Actor Joel Grey won a best supporting actor Academy Award in '72 for his role as the MC in the Liza Minnelli vehicle Cabaret, following his hugely successful portrayal of the character in the Broadway musical which had won him a Tony award. After that however his successes and appearances were fewer and of lesser consequence (he appeared in Buffy the Vampire Slayer for a season) and often... > Read more

The Viscounts: Harlem Nocturne (1959)

8 Aug 2022 | <1 min read

In the final month of the Fifties, the Viscounts covered this piece which Ray Noble and His Orchestra had introduced two decades previous. But to it the Viscounts brought a sleazy menace in the simple bass line and shimmering guitar behind a saxophone sound which comes at you from a shadowy back alley. It reeks of film noir sensibility. This moody track was included on the excellent... > Read more

Gene McDaniels: Tower of Strength (1961)

23 Jul 2022 | 1 min read | 1

When Nick Lowe sang this oldie in concert at the Powerstation (see review here), it's a fair bet many in the audience either didn't recognise it, or hadn't heard it in over four decades. Lowe's treatment -- slow, less dramatic -- made the lyrics act as a neat counterpoint to his own bitter I Trained Her to Love Me. But in McDaniel's hands this song he co-wrote with Burt Bacharach is a very... > Read more

Hancock, Carter, Williams, McFerrin: Chan's Song, Never Said (1986)

18 Jul 2022 | 1 min read

When it comes to movies about jazz, the jazz audience is almost impossible to please. Every detail – even in fictions – must be authentic, or at least ring true to the art, the artists, the milieu, the audience . . . Tough call, and why Clint Eastwood's Bird was often curtly dismissed despite its many strengths (however replacing the original musicians behind Charlie Parker's... > Read more

The Flying Pickets: Get Off Of My Cloud (1983)

11 Jul 2022 | <1 min read

Songs by the Rolling Stones have suffered a number of indignities -- usually when an orchestra is involved -- but few have been made over in a humorous way, as was done by this British a cappella outfit in the early Eighties which enjoyed a number one Christmas single in '83 with their version of Yazoo's Only You. The group -- mostly theatre and stage singers -- took their name from the... > Read more

Bob Marley and the Wailers: Let the Lord Be Seen in You (1965)

4 Jul 2022 | 1 min read

Bob Marley only had about seven high-profile years between No Woman No Cry and Redemption Song, about the same length of time the Beatles had between Please Please Me and the break-up. But of course, like the Beatles, there was Bob before and after that. After that was, notably, the posthumus album Confrontation in '83 which contained Buffalo Soldier, one of his greatest songs. And... > Read more

Jacqueline Taieb: 7 heures du matin (1967)

27 Jun 2022 | <1 min read

The attractive young Taieb (who had been born in Tunis) was one of the generation of "ye-ye" girl singers which emerged in France in the Sixties as the Beatles swept through. The French took to the hip fashions and Carnaby Street style with a passion and Talieb was an overnight sensation at 19 with this cool, slightly detached song which was her first, biggest and last hit under... > Read more

Elmer Fudd: The Fool on the Hill (1995)

19 Jun 2022 | <1 min read

There have been thousands of covers and interpretations of Beatles' songs -- from the refined (orchestral and chamber groups) to the ridiculous (dogs barking out She Loves You), from jazz and Hawaiian (by way of Belgium), from reggae to trip-hop and . . . well, then there were the Rutles (whose parodies were also covered). There are also these exception and bizarre collections which manage... > Read more

The Tickle: Subway (1967)

13 Jun 2022 | <1 min read

These none-hit wonders have quite a remarkable claim to fame, if fame can be reduced to a footnote in rock history. The Tickle from Hull were the backing band on the debut album of a guy called David Bowie. Doubtless they got the gig playing with an unknown singer through producer Tony Visconti who twiddled the studio knobs on this song. They were certainly up to the task of sounding... > Read more

Nina Simone: Alone Again Naturally (1982)

6 Jun 2022 | <1 min read

One of the most bitter songs Nina Simone -- indeed anyone -- has ever recorded, this revision of Gilbert O'Sullivan's rather maudlin hit now gets down into dark vengeance in Simone's hands. It appeared in 2020 on the album Fodder on My Wings, a collection of songs from various places, and -- recorded in '82 -- it is very hard to listen to. But her relationship to her father was... > Read more

Jimi Hendrix: God Save the Queen (live 1970)

4 Jun 2022 | <1 min read

"Stand up for your country and start singin'," says Jimi when he played this to open his set at the Isle of Wight Festival in 1970 where half a million people turned up, just eight months after the Rolling Stones' disastrous free concert at Altamont. It might have been the Seventies but for many this was the last great festival of the Sixties, and just 18 days later Hendrix was... > Read more

Annie Ross: Twisted (1952)

29 May 2022 | <1 min read | 2

Annie Ross -- who died in 2020 at 89 -- had an extraordinary career for a kid born Annabelle Short into a family of vaudevillians in London. When she was four, the family migrated to New York and by the time she was 15 she'd performed with Paul Whiteman, moved to Los Angeles, played Judy Garland's younger sister in the movie Presenting Lily Mars and had changed her name to Annie Ross. She... > Read more

John Lennon: Cold Turkey demo (1969)

22 May 2022 | 1 min read

These days it's not uncommon for artists to air their drug problems in music, interviews and – as Johnny Depp has shown us -- in open court. But when John Lennon's Cold Turkey – about heroin withdrawal – was released it was something honest and rare. Here was one of the most famous musicians on the planet acknowledging his dependency (he sniffed rather than injected by... > Read more

Lee Clayton: Industry (live, 1989)

15 May 2022 | 1 min read | 1

Rocking country singer Lee Clayton out of Alabama and Tennessee almost made the big time at the end of the Seventies with two exceptional albums, Border Affair and Naked Child. In some ways he was ahead of his time and if they had arrrived around the same time as James McMurtry, Chris Whitley and a few others a decade later he might have been seen as a part of a tough-minded and poetic... > Read more