If you want to see the difference between a great lyric and a moderately good one, here's a place to start - compare and contrast Jacques Prévert's 1946 song 'Les Feuilles Mortes' to the later American version,by Johnny Mercer, released...
A few months ago, I went to Maurizio Sarnicola's Goldmine studio two hours south of Naples and, with my German friend, the accordionist Hartmut Saam, and new Italian friends Fortunata Monzo (vocals), Giovanni Rago (guitar), Domenice de Marco (drums), Gianni...
Camping was off. That much was clear as we took our flight from Heathrow to Australia on the last day of 2019. Our first destination, a campsite at Cape Conran on the coast of Victoria, had declared that the risk...
This week's Friday Song is so obscure that posting the video which accompanies it feels like a bit of positive musical archaeology. As far as I can see, this version of 'My Meatless Day, a wonderful comic song from 1917,...
My plan for the next Friday Song was to celebrate an intense, passionate and slightly strange love song (of which more later). Then I thought again. It's Friday the 13th. The mood today is exceptionally grim. If ever there were...
Here's an odd one. Until a few years ago, I thought I couldn't stand the song I have now chosen as my Friday Song. I found it schmaltzy, melodically uninteresting - the worst kind of middle-of-the-road crowd-pleaser. I defy anyone...
When he died in 1994 at the age of 52, Harry Nilsson left behind several versions of himself. There was the almost spookily pure-voiced singer of 'Everybody's Talkin' (written by Fred Neil) for the film Midnight Cowboy; or the fringe...
Something rather interesting happens when a good contemporary artist decides to cover a song from the distant past. When James Taylor sang 'Oh! Susanna!', a Stephen Foster from the mid nineteenth century came out out like a modern(-ish) folk song....
Should there be a trigger warning for listeners of this week'd Friday Song? Almost certainly. It makes gender assumptions that some might find offensive. Its premise is based on the patronising assumption that, on a date, men will pay for...
One of the more unusual CDs in my collection - and one of the most frequently played - is Clara and the Real Lowdown by Clara Sanabras, which was produced by her musician husband Harvey Brough. It was this album...