Where have you (or rather this song) been all my life?

No not you reader, but more the song or even artist….Have you ever wondered (I nearly paraphrased ever had it blue? Ouch!) how you can have lived a lifetime and never have encountered a classic song by a favorite artist? Sometimes its a long lost classic by a fave band. It might be someone of your fave genre you never heard of (or most other people) or it might be a one hit wonder (FICTION FACTORY, FEELS LIKE HEAVEN being a classic though JONA LEWIS managed two with KITCHEN AT PARTIES and STOP THE CAVALRY and had way more talent than that suggests)

This week I moved to a haunted house in Somerset so may well post either some supernatural videos or RENTAGHOST classics depending on its nature of it…It got me in the mood to explore the nearby castle and museum which includes a picture of my old house and all about CECIL SHARP the folk historian who met musicians in houses like mine and notated melodies that often were stolen from these poor farmers who might even have part composed themselves! Famous composers like Holzt who lived in Hammersmith and whose house I often passed each day, would meet Sharp for inspiration and discover traditional, otherwise lost tunes. These rare unheard songs might have been lost forever, so though unrelated these musical ghosts of the past seemed to this week inhabit my musical daydreams.

IN MUSICAL MEMORIAM

In December I should be working on a music project in Brighton which I shall document on these pages but for now I thought I would celebrate lost greatness. Brighton is a MOD heartland and having rediscovered my WELLER signed program this week I also met by chance someone who attended the final JAM gig in Glasgow in 1982. A rare occurrence given the fact that though it was a large/medium venue, its no stadium so the chances of meeting an attendee of such a gig are remote. The individual in question wouldnt care if WELLER died such was his pain still felt over the JAM split. He had little time for anything PW has done since. Surely no performer can have been so loved and hated by some of his fan base? Its similar to the way some STRANGLERS fans turned on HUGH CORNWELL for leaving the band. Certainly his former bandmates came back from the grave in a musical sense…Literally in one members case. Like STRANGLER musical ghosts from the past come to the present to delight, fright and entertain. I recommend HUGH’s podcast show, which the very much alive CORNWELL writes and presents http://mrdemillefm.com/program/come-again/.