C is for Cat Stevens

C is also for Claire.
And C is for Choo,
And so that is why,
This post is for You...



(Oh- and PS- has anyone else realised the Cat Stevens / Jose Gonzalez parallel? Weird beard)

B is for The Beatles

For as long as I can remember, the Beatles' music has been running through every cell in my body. Although I wasn't alive during the Beatlemania, and I wasn't born until ten years after they made their last album, they've always been a massive part of my life.

Dad used to play the Beatles over and over again on long car trips, and we had a bit of a mixed collection from their early days on cassette tape. When I was really little, I loved all that upbeat stuff- the Hamburg run-offs- like Twist and Shout, I Wanna Hold your Hand, Please Please Me and Roll Over Beethoven...just to name a few. By the time I was about eight or nine, Help! was my favourite, and although my years of teenage angst were still a way off, I loved the darker tracks like Hide Your Love Away and Come Together.

In the the summer holidays of 1993-94, Dad gave me a project to make some Beatles compilation tapes for the car, and he got everyone in his office to bring in all the vinyl albums they had of the recordings of the Beatles and also of John Lennon during his 'solo' (+Yoko) career. That summer I spent hours, days and weeks poring over the albums, playing them over and over, wearing down the record grooves and the vinyl needle no doubt. I fell madly in love with all of the albums, but especially with A Hard Day's Night. I was thirteen and all of the love songs on that album seemed to make so much sense! Bahahaha! Whenever I hear songs from that album, it immediatley takes me to that time in my life. I remember renting the A Hard Days Night movie, and stealing the boy who lived across the road's collection of Beatles Piano music so I could learn all the songs on the piano. When I was a teenager I was in love with all of them individually at different times- first it was Paul, then Ringo, then George, and in the end, it was John, and I think that's how it's going to stay...(Not even reading Cynthia Lennon's John released in 2007 could deter me) :)

By the time I was in my mid teens, and the time was the mid 90s, I was obsessed with Let It Be, Revolver and The White Album- I remember seeing the "Revolution" Fim clip, and realised again that the Beatles were well ahead of time, and doing grunge way before Kurt, Eddie or Chris Cornell.

When I was sixteen-ish, and starting to emerge from my grunge phase, and starting my hippie stint, Abbey Road and Sgt Peppers really spoke to me- for the school magazine poll in Year 11 I wrote that Here Come's the Sun was my number one track of all time, and I can still remember before I left for Canada at the end of that same year, Dad played She's Leaving Home in the front lounge room for me, and I had to go and cry on my own in my room so he wouldn't see.

I also thoroughly enjoyed the 1996 Beatles Anthology Project, especially the Real Love re-release; I do believe my siblings and I wore out the videos tapes that we recorded the Anthology on- we still quote many of the things that the Fabulous Four said throughout the collections of interviews, in our banter "There's a plug for ya!" (Thanks Ringo).

And still, til this very day, how I love them...I mentioned how I went to a party a little while back in a swank apartment over looking Hyde Park, and we were listening to the Beatles, and the stereo just kept on rolling out hit after classic hit, and might I add, they sound even better here. Innit.



(nb: Honourable mentions in this category go to Blur, Boy George, Basement Jaxx & Bananarama)

A is for Amy Winehouse

"What she is, [is] mouthy, funny, sultry, and quite possibly crazy... It's impossible not to be seduced by her originality."

Her music spans across the genre's of soul, jazz, rock and roll and ska, and teamed with her most incredibly strong and beautiful voice, Amy Winehouse is one of my most favourite female solo artists. She's been one savvy lady- getting together with Sharon Jones' backing band the Dap-Kings (another personal fave) for studio time and tour support, and then hooking up with Marc Ronson back in 2006 and recording Back to Black.

I remember the first time I heard the track Rehab, and quickly logged onto Last Fm. to listen to the rest of the album- the tracks You Know that I'm No Good and Love is a Losing Game struck me immediately, and are still on high rotation on my humble little shuffle.

Sadly, like many great performers before her, her mental health and substance abuse issues threaten to overcome her. I just hope she can continue to fight off the demons, make it past the age of 27 and keep doing what she does best.

An A-Z of British Music Genius

I thought is was about time for me to have one of those little concept projects that you see on other blogs out there in cyberspace, and although I've been thinking about it for sometime, my weekend music experience further instilled in me the need to highlight my love of British music.

And so it begins...