As said, over five posts I am listing a top 100 favourite guitarists, from number 100 to number one. All of the pieces I have picked are as much favourites irrespective of the performer, as much as they are examples of their best work. All are instrumentals – I decided that there should be nothingRead More
What is it about guitar music that I find so compelling? The interest has been not so much in the guitar as one feature of a group, but as a solo endeavour, where all is stripped away that detracts from letting the instrument speak for itself. There is pleasure in the sound of the guitar,Read More
Shortly after hearing the sad news that Neil Innes had died (on 29 December 2019), I sought out some of his music. The first tune that came up was the theme to The Innes Books of Records, his BBC Two television series that ran 1979-1982. A simple, ghostly figure on a jangly piano sets upRead More
Next up in my reviews of the year is the year in music. Spotify, which clearly is keeping a watchful eye on me, has passed on the information that I listened to 4,535 different songs over 2019. I’m not quite sure whether this is too many, average, or less than I would listen to whenRead More
Among the notable people whose passing has been marked over the past couple of months, some may have missed the mention given to Dave Bartholomew, who died in June at the age of 100. He was one of the great behind-the-scenes figures of American popular music. A musician, songwriter, arranger and producer, he helped createRead More
Reggae is island music. It is music that came out of the island of Jamaica, and in its true form could only derive from that place, but its island nature lies deeper. Islands are worlds unto themselves that nevertheless can only be defined by their relation to the worlds that lie beyond. They are proudlyRead More
Rolling Thunder Revue: A Bob Dylan Story by Martin Scorsese, newly released theatrically and on Netflix, opens with a film by Georges Méliès. Escamotage d’une dame chez Robert-Houdin (1896), known in English as The Vanishing Lady, features Méliès in his familiar role as a magician, placing a woman (Jehanne d’Alcy) under a cloth and, throughRead More
You led me into the trackless woods, My falling stars, my dark endeavour. Anna Akhmatova, from ‘To My Poems’ (translated by Lyn Coffin) What joy there is in coming across the great work of art that you had not been expecting. The writer new to you whose words say exactly what you had been, unknowingly,Read More
Third in this series of reviews of the year, from my humble perspective, is music. While live music was only occasional, and then too often disappointing (I shall mention no names), recorded music was quite splendid. Spotify is one of the great cultural enablers of the age. Yes, the audio quality is sub-standard, and theRead More
The 1970 film Five Easy Pieces is generally held to be among the best of the classic 70s period of Hollywood cinema. It tells of an oil rig worker, Bobby Dupea (Jack Nicholson), who comes from a privileged, classical music-playing family, from which he has tried to escape. He travels home when he learns thatRead More