A sad loss but a good innings. I was once at a private music festival having just been given a "Camberwell Carrot", I'm not used to such things and I assumed I was halucinating... what I was hearing was Nik Turner playing In The Mood in the middle of the afternoon in a field in Kent. He wasn't with Hawkwind the one time I saw them about 1980.
Saw him in Liverpool back in 1985. When he came on stage I had just finished disgracing myself due to unwise beverage choices I lept straight into the mosh pit = my one and only time ;-)
I first saw Christine Perfect, as she then was, in late 1968, maybe early 1969, as vocalist in Chicken Shack. She had an amazing voice singing the blues, and was what made the band stand out from all the other blues bands in Britain at the time. Rumours is in my all time top twenty albums. That night brings back lots of memories. I was not long 18, in my last year at school, and it was the first gig with a name band that we went to see as we'd passed our driving tests and we could travel a bit further. We were 18, she must have been 25 and certainly had an impression upon us.
The Colourfield's Virgins and Philistines is one of my all-time favorite albums, definitely in the Top 25 at least. This is the first time since David Bowie passed away that someone whom I've been an avid "completist" collector of has died... And he was only about three years older than I am, so it's not only depressing, it's scary too.
Let me concur: Virgins and Philistines, as well as the two Fun Boy Thee albums, were central to my adolescence. Hall was able to turn any phrase into something bittersweet.
"They talked about life, but missed all the points, points, points, points ..."
This one is hitting a lot of my friends very hard, that'll be because most of them were of an age for 2-Tone and now of course are a similar age to Terry Hall. It's an obvious choice but Ghost Town just perfectly summed up the mess that was post industrial Britain at the time. Little did we realise where we'd be in 2022.
Let me concur: Virgins and Philistines, as well as the two Fun Boy Thee albums, were central to my adolescence. Hall was able to turn any phrase into something bittersweet.
"They talked about life, but missed all the points, points, points, points ..."
I agree. His music was not at the center of my teenage tastes at the time and yet the lyrics especially made an impression that made me return to his music much later. He and his colleagues had not only a great way with words but a special ability to combine them with music in a way that just fit while still saying important things, and he had a unique delivery.
Who could forget the song "Ghost Town" and the great video that went with it, by Terry Hall and the first era of The Specials.
Interesting also to read the story behind the song from the magazine "The Music Aficionado".
"What is now known as the 1981 Summer of Riots came to symbolize the disillusion of British youth with anything that smelled like government and authority. It also had a soundtrack in a perfectly timed and appropriately named number 1 hit by the Specials, their creative peak – Ghost Town."
Jeff Beck was one of the guitar giants to emerge from the late 1960s in the UK. HiHo Silver Lining is his most well known song, a singalong anthem, but he was actually a much better guitarist than that.
Yep this is a big one for me. Still recall hearing Prove It after a school mate bought it that afternoon. In our school uniforms on his Dansette player listening to something that sounded sort of unearthly. A few years back I got to see them at Big Ears which was fine - but not the sweaty NYC club around 75-78 when they would have ripped my skull open. RIP Mr Verlaine.
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A sad loss but a good innings. I was once at a private music festival having just been given a "Camberwell Carrot", I'm not used to such things and I assumed I was halucinating... what I was hearing was Nik Turner playing In The Mood in the middle of the afternoon in a field in Kent. He wasn't with Hawkwind the one time I saw them about 1980.
Manuel Göttsching
Terry Hall: lead singer of the Specials dies aged 63
"They talked about life, but missed all the points, points, points, points ..."
Interesting also to read the story behind the song from the magazine "The Music Aficionado".
"What is now known as the 1981 Summer of Riots came to symbolize the disillusion of British youth with anything that smelled like government and authority. It also had a soundtrack in a perfectly timed and appropriately named number 1 hit by the Specials, their creative peak – Ghost Town."
https://musicaficionado.blog/2017/06/01/ghost-town-by-the-specials/
Jeff Beck
Yukihiro Takahashi
Anthony ‘Top’ Topham, the Original Yardbirds Guitarist, Dead At Age 75
I understand Topham never recorded a note with The Yardbirds, but he was the first guitarist. Funny old thing life.
Yep this is a big one for me. Still recall hearing Prove It after a school mate bought it that afternoon. In our school uniforms on his Dansette player listening to something that sounded sort of unearthly. A few years back I got to see them at Big Ears which was fine - but not the sweaty NYC club around 75-78 when they would have ripped my skull open. RIP Mr Verlaine.