Do I Have Time For This? A Contributor's Guide to, err, Contributing

Do I Have Time For This? (or ‘A Plea From Kevin T’)

Can I help out with a few bits and pieces for I Taught Myself How to Grow Old?

Of course. It’s a good blog. I’ve enjoyed reading about artists I knew and learning something about the (many, many) ones I had never heard of.

But have I the time?

One idea I had was to write about the music my two boys, Kevin T and bro Niall T, had introduced me to over the years dragging me out of the 60’s (and 50’s) and into the 21st Century, music wise. The working title is “Babes and Sucklings”.

God ordains strength (or music) out of the mouth of babes and sucklings’ (Psalms 8:2.)

So far, so good. First topic, Status Quo (you had to go and choose Quo?! - Kevin T)

My first bit of memory refreshing research quickly taught me that I knew practically sod all about Quo apart from the songs on the ’12 Gold Bars’ album and a few others. An hour and a half later I knew a hell of a lot more. However, working out what to put in and what to leave out seemed to be a fine subject for a post grad research fellowship. (Ph.D. (Cantab):(Quo) has a nice ring to it. Well, at least it is in Latin.

OK, park that one, different tack. Write about a single track, both song and artist new to me. That can’t be too hard can it? Can it?

Too bloody right it can.

This afternoon I started a piece about ‘The Promised Land’, a great song by Chuck Berry, well performed by Johnny Allan.


I may still do that piece. I am now well qualified.

After three hours, I know where and when the song was written, its significance in the hierarchy of socio-cultural Americana, when it was first recorded, all the words, who has covered it and when and the life stories of Chuck and Johnny. (I feel I now know them so well that first names are appropriate). If pushed, I can also probably furnish the biographical details of the tea lady at Chess Studios in 1964.

So:

Lesson 1:
DO NOT under any circumstances start a piece by researching the subject on the Internet.

Lesson 2:
Knock out a piece from memory and learn from the comments on the blog from those who know more.

That’s me from now on. And ‘cos this is a music blog here is one of my faves.



OK, I spotted Dave Edmunds, Graham Parker and Steve Cropper.

Anybody know the horns, the keyboard player and the two drummers? Maybe I will look on the Internet?

Bugger. Here we go again!

Written by Jack T (father of Kevin T)

Where's the Quo? - Kevin T

The Best Of Chuck Berry

The Best Of Chuck Berry today, Disc one on the way to work, Disc two on the way home. The Best of is not a misnomer, Chuck Berry really had some greats.
Chuck Berry is one of three artists that I want to see before they, or indeed I, but hopefully they, die. Jerry Lee Lewis and Little Richard being the other two, the true pioneers of Rock and Roll.
This greatest hits album is of course brilliant, maybe not through out but the bits that are good are exceptional, and the exceptional of the exceptional are amongst some of the greatest songs ever recorded, Johnny B Goode, Maybelline, Roll Over Beethoven, Sweet Little 16, Sweet Little Rock and Roller and Rock and Roll Music, and that’s just a few, once you start thinking about Berrys great songs the list goes on an and on.
There are some criticisms though, No Particular Place To Go is a great song, the imitations of that formula Berry did following that release are good, but just that, imitations, and at 40 tracks you hear the imitations of Maybelline and Johnny B Goode. This is forgivable though, to hear Berry hollering Hail! Hail! Rock and Roll, to hear his guitar, to hear Johnnie Johnsons piano, to listen to these songs and appreciate how important they were then and the importance they have on what I listen to now. These aren’t museum pieces though, they rock with the best of them. Berrys Brown Eyed Handsome Man is far more believable than Buddy Hollys, you believe the stories, the indescretions, the scrapes with the law. So with all that its difficult to score, if this 40 track album was 10 tracks long it would easily be a ten out of ten, if it was 20 tracks long it would be a ten out of ten, 30 tracks and it might be nine out of ten, but at 40 tracks long its 8 out of 10.



Maybelline by Chuck Berry