Daily Archives: October 7, 2011

Aside

I made it back in one piece from Munich (see below). I enjoyed my week off and am feeling renewed and have restocked my virtual record box for the home stretch of my 365-day odyssey.

I also want to say a massive thanks to the seven guest posters who stepped up and helped out in my absence. I loved all the posts, they were all both witty and erudite. Most of all each the seven songs chosen were strong. I was so pleased that they captured the spirit of the blog in their diversity, spanning several places of origin, genres and decades and covering both the well known and obscure.

7th October

The Doors – Riders on the storm (DT guest post)

OK – My name is David. I’ve known Rob-James as a neighbour, friend, taxi driver, quiz partner since he was 3 and have proudly watched him develop into the overweight, badly dressed young man he is today…

Feel I have to go with Rob-James’ initial theme for LiM and choose something old and bluesy even though The Doors are more associated with rock. They were one of the last big groups to emerge from a period of musical change that began with the Beatles and their distinctive sound suited the late 60’s – early 70’s.

Riders on the Storm, from the album LA Woman, still makes me imagine wistfully what it would be like to hear them playing it at a big festival even though it was not one of the iconic Jim Morrison’s favourites – he described it as cocktail jazz.

Unfortunately, they didn’t get the chance to make a video for this before JM’s demise but the above is not a bad effort after the fact.

Aside

Ray Bryant – Up above the rock (Rory McDermott guest post)

Forewords annoy me. I have read some of the most meaningless stuff written by some of the most meaningful men. John Peel piddling across the pages of a pop biography, Berry Gordy wasting paper….so I’m gonna keep it short.

RJ has done much of the hard work for us this year; so this is my IOU contribution.

Ray Bryant, who died earlier this year, is fairly well known for his work as a jazz pianist. He pretty much played with all the bigdogs beginning in Philadelphia then New York. However, his jangling piano here is thundering funk, the horns will pop your hernia. And if you blink at the start you may miss the tightest drum intro of all time.

RIP RB