I liked this lot. I always felt as a blues/rock/prog rock man I shouldn't, but I did. Pop music well played. I'm old enough to be able to say one of my kids got me into them.
We can have all kinds of debates about greatest this that or the other, but there's no debate about greatest guitarist. Saw the guy a few times, including the "let's set the stage on fire" gig on the IOW just before he died. One of my sons plays guitar in a very good covers band, and no-one gets near Jimi for hero worship. For those who missed him, I hoped you got a chance to see The Hamsters* who did a great tribute to him. Still feel very sad about his demise. What would he have been like now? The Blues album issued retrospectively gives us a hint. * The boys at it!
Saw the Hamsters a few times, doing both Hendrix and ZZ Top tributes. Snail's-Pace Slim is a phenomenal guitar player, and I loved his habit of spraying WD40 on his strings to assist his lightning solos. Brilliant.
Happy 60th Birthday to The Damned Singer (and former Gravedigger!), Dave Vanian, who was born David Lett on this day in Hemel Hempstead in 1957. He holds the distiction of singing on the first Punk single to be released in the UK and what a fine song it is too, here it is...
And my dear old dad's favourite Tenor (my dad is no mean Tenor either!), Luciano Pavarotti was born on this day in Modena in 1935....
Tbh, I actually preferred Mario Lanza because his voice had more depth, power and emotion, in my opinion, but Pavarotti certainly had more control and longevity. Interesting that Lanza was Pavarotti's hero. My dad had a really good tenor voice and nearly decided to take it up professionally, so the family story goes, when an agent came to talk to him over the course of a couple of evenings. My brothers and sisters can't hold a note, but I sang in a couple of choirs and can still sing a bit these days, so the genes got passed on, if half-heartedly, shall we say.
Happy Birthday to the great Paul Simon who was born in Newark, New Jersey 76 years ago today... I have recently posted a few of his, but he has written so many brilliant songs here are a few more of my favourites...
It's serious nostalgia time. Lots of bands get the "there is only one" treatment, but the Bonzos were definitely a one-off
