vinyl-connection

[vinyl-connection]

GOOD LUCK

Rock behemoths Pink Floyd cast a long shadow across popular music, from the 60s to the 80s and beyond. Perhaps that is why Floyd guitarist David Gilmour has produced just five studio albums in a six decade career; the band that bought him fame, fortune and friction has tended to dominate his creative life. Luck And Strange is Gilmour’s most recent solo release, appearing in September 2024. To the…

[vinyl-connection]

BOB BRINGS IT BACK

A few days ago we escaped a summer scorcher by retreating to the coolth of an air-conditioned cinema. The film was James Mangold’s A Complete Unknown, the newly released biopic of the early career of Bob Dylan. Featuring a riveting performance by Timothée Chalamet, the film tracks Dylan’s career from his arrival in New York in 1961 to his game-changing performance at the Newport Folk Festival in…

[vinyl-connection]

ALBUM COVERS | BLUESKY MINE

With the madness coursing through America’s veins, I’ve become increasingly unwilling to have any intersection between President Pumpkin’s oligarchs and my life. So, like a couple of other friends, I am transitioning from IG to Bluesky for posting records. Do I think the dead fish tech bosses will notice? Of course not. But tens of thousands are leaving IG and that’s a statement of some kind. I…

[vinyl-connection]

KID REMEMBERS

Sonically daring and lyrically challenging, Radiohead’s follow-up to the hugely successful OK Computer was the result of much suffering. Thom Yorke endured a psycho-emotional crisis during the extensive world tour following OK Computer’s success while the whole band agonised about their ‘direction’. Yet somehow they managed to both renew their sound and create an album that mesmerises many,…

[vinyl-connection]

CAPTAIN’S STRANGE VOYAGE

One of the wonderful things about popular music is the way it has splintered into a thousand sparkling threads, like a fireworks display in slow motion. There are more genres, sub-sections, and styles than could be examined in a lifetime… and it all started less than seventy years ago. Yet despite the best efforts of writers to nail down every variant on the rock and roll menu, some artists…

[vinyl-connection]

MEETIN’ JIMMY SMITH

Growing up in a musical family, young Jimmy Smith learned piano and later, double bass. When he switched to organ in the mid-1950s after hearing Wild Bill Davis, Jimmy combined the two instrumental skills, utilising the bass pedals of his Hammond B3 to fill out the lower end of his sound. While this made the addition of a bass player unnecessary, Smith worked with many fine guitarists including…

[vinyl-connection]

ROLLING THUNDER REVIEW

A number of Bob Dylan’s 60s songs have become part of the tapestry of popular culture. He was a lightning rod for the folk revival and the emerging protest movement. As a result, it is tempting to think of Dylan as an introverted singer-songwriter, a strumming folkie who presents his songs in an unassuming way to thoughtful audiences sitting in rapt silence the better to absorb his poetic,…

[vinyl-connection]

PINK PULSE

There are many reasons for not having attended a live concert by an artist you love. Maybe the tickets sold out quicker than you could say ‘Scalpers!’. Perhaps the concert was in another city—or another country. For artists long gone, you may have been born too late. Whatever the reason, the live album has long been a consolation prize for music fans who couldn’t make the gig. In 1994, Pink…

[vinyl-connection]

CONTRACT OF LOVE

He is a powerful voice backed by a forceful band, an entertainer who shirtfronts his fans while elevating them; a singer-poet-preacher who roars about suffering while channelling exaltation. He is Warracknabeal born global citizen Nick Cave, and his latest album is Wild God. If you follow Cave’s music, you already know that Wild God has been very well received by critics and fans alike. In fact,…

[vinyl-connection]

1974 COUNTDOWN | THE LIST

Here is the entire 1974 COUNTDOWN, with links to the original posts. Following this are the other 1974 posts including live albums, film soundtracks and jazz. And here is an invitation to add their your own favourite 1974 albums in the Comments… ranked or unranked, two or twenty, curated our plucked out of the ether, whatever tickles your fancy. I’m sure those who have stuck with the 74 FROM ’74…

[vinyl-connection]

1974 COUNTDOWN | #5 — #1

It has certainly been a long, strange trip yet here we are near the end of the 74 FROM ’74 album countdown. With a dozen-and-a-half days of 2024 still remaining. What efficiency! Before launching into the final five albums, it is timely to recall that this is neither a ‘Best of’ list, nor a ‘Greatest albums’ list. The number attached to a particular LP has little quantifiable meaning compared to…

[vinyl-connection]

MUSIC VON HARMONIA

[vinyl-connection]

1974 COUNTDOWN | #10 — #6

#10 BOB MARLEY & THE WAILERS — NATTY DREAD If, like your correspondent, you have tended to be a bit puzzled by reggae and respectfully bewildered by the deification of Robert Nesta Marley, may I recommend Natty Dread? This is Marley’s first album after parting company with Peter Tosh and you can almost hear him revelling in the freedom to express himself in all aspects of the music. From the…

[vinyl-connection]

1974 COUNTDOWN | #15 — #11

#15 LOU REED — ROCK ‘N’ ROLL ANIMAL Steve Hunter and Dick Wagner on guitars supercharge this live Lou Reed classic. Drawing heavily on his Velvet Underground period, but in updated arrangements, the song-list is user friendly but never cuddly. The version of “Heroin” is scarifying and “Lady Day” despairing. But at other times the energy fizzes out of the speakers (“White LIght/White Heat”) as…

[vinyl-connection]

BAD GIRLS GOOD TIMES

Born LaDonna Adrian Gaines but widely known as the Queen of Disco, Donna Summer sold over 100 million records worldwide and was responsible for the wearing out more pairs of dancing shoes than any artist in pop history. (Possibly not true, but then again…) Having racked up an astonishing forty-two hit singles on the US Billboard chart, Ms Summer was also a hugely successful album artist and none…

[vinyl-connection]

1974 COUNTDOWN | #20 — #16

#20 STEELEYE SPAN — NOW WE ARE SIX This is the LP where the British folk-rockers really emphasised the latter. Now We Are Six rocks! “Thomas the Rhymer” bolts out of the gate at a gallop, and the pace and energy are maintained through the hilarious “Two Magicians” and mythic “Seven Hundred Elves”. Indeed, common wisdom has it that, but for the dreadful “Twinkle Twinkle” (yes, that one) and lame…

[vinyl-connection]

NO TITLE

A buzzing, industrial sound, a bass pulse, somewhere in the distance a noise, a scream. Distorted guitars offer a grinding melody that rolls like a broad dark river cluttered with storm flotsam. The tune evokes “Oh Shenandoah”, a classic American folk song. After a couple of minutes, when the melody is kicked up an octave, it is like a beam of light on a dreary day, a shaft of hope. The bass…