When I was young, older work colleagues and friends introduced me to older bands , music from the early ’70s, like Bad Company , Free, Bob Seger, and Cream, ‘before my era’ whatever that means several decades later, anyway….

I liked a lot of this kind of thing, but had only heard the albums from tapes, and yes, you’ve guessed it, records from the Lending Library , but a band I liked , Blackfoot, who were a ‘Southern Boogie’ band , according to the music press, were an amalgam of all the aforementioned bands, and they were in thrall to the British Rock bands like Uriah Heep, Free and their ilk, as well as the southern blues they grew up with. I had heard their cover of Free’s ‘Wishing Well’ , and it was as good, if not better than the original , their singer Rickey Medlocke had a great voice, not a million miles away from that of Bob Seger, or Paul Rodgers, rough edged and soulful. I bought ‘Marauder’ in the summer of 1981, a cracking album, opening with the Motorhead-ish thrash of ‘Good Morning’, and continuing with the moving acoustic based ‘Diary of a Workingman’, the almost Bad-Co / Free style boogie of ‘Fly Away’, which bears more than a passing resemblance tune-wise to Nils Lofgren’s ‘No Mercy’. Around that time, I recorded myself singing ‘Fly Away’ , on a battery powered Grundig cassette player , which were all the rage back then, accompanied by my schoolfriend Peter Rist, on his electric guitar, we made a fair stab at it, and I’m sure I still have the cassette somewhere at home. Moving swiftly on, ‘Dry County’ , rocks like early Z.Z Top , but my absolute favourite track on ‘Marauder’ is ‘Rattlesnake Rock’n’Roller’, a real southern fried rocker, if ever there was one, from the banjo picking intro from Rickey’s grandfather Shorty Medlocke, to the piano boogie -woogie a la Jools Holland or Dr John and the mariachi horns, it’s a real classic. They were not a band I ever saw live , they did tour the UK in 1982, and this was documented on the most excellent live album ‘Highway Song-Live, released also in that year. Critic Garry Bushell, then writing for Sounds, gave the album 4 stars, which pleased me no end, as he had seemingly moved into championing heavy metal bands such as the then up and coming Iron Maiden, Rose Tattoo, UFO and Saxon, the album was as good as the review, brimming with beery bonhomie, ‘Gimme , Gimme Gimme ‘ starts the proceedings off, and its clear that this boogie band mean business, with lashings of slide guitar very much in evidence. They rock their way through ‘Every Man Should Know (Queenie)’ , ‘Dry County’, ‘Fly Away’, with the bluesy boogie reaching fever pitch with ‘Trouble in Mind’, the old blues standard , which segues into a harmonica led version of ‘Train Train, (later covered acoustically in bluegrass style by Dolly Parton in 1999!), and the superb Skynyrd-esque ‘Highway Song’, which comes to a guitar soloing climax , and not forgetting the ‘Howay the Lads’ singsong, with the Newcastle audience. ‘Highway Song’ is one of the classic live albums of the era, up there with ‘No sleep ’til Hammersmith’, in my opinion. After such a classic couple of albums, Blackfoot were never really the same, 1983 saw them experimenting with keyboards and modernising and ‘commercialising ‘ their sound in a similar way to ZZ Top , Van Halen and Judas Priest did at the time with varying degrees of success. You have to remember that the landscape of rock music changed drastically when MTV came along, with videos rather than music promoting the song. Southern Rock was seen as dated in some quarters, except maybe on the Old Grey Whistle Test , where you often saw bands like Lynyrd Skynrd or Little Feat. ‘Siogo’ was the 1983 album, featuring Uriah Heep’s Ken Hensley on keyboards, and a different , more commercial , less rocky sound, however there were a few good moments on this disc, notably ‘ Send Me an Angel’, which I remember playing in my Sony Walkman when out running, back in the days when I was a marathon runner, ‘Crossfire’ and ‘Driving Fool’ , were the real highlights for me, but the sound was more like the Whitesnake of the time, soulful , yes, but not the Blackfoot I knew and loved. So that being said, its always great to play ‘Marauder’, and ‘Highway Song’ every once in a while, usually at the weekend, with a glass of the finest malt whisky at hand, though perhaps it should be bourbon, ‘a lowdown southern whiskey’, to go with a lowdown southern band!

Playlist:

Bad Company -Straight Shooter ((1974)

Blackfoot-Marauder (1981)

Bob Seger and the Silver Bullet Band-Nine Tonight (1981)

Free-Heartbreaker (1972)

Really going back in time with this post, before ‘back in the day ‘ existed, to where it all started, when I bought my first LP, On the Level , by Status Quo, which launched me on a lifelong journey of discovering rock music and all points in between. Back then, I didn’t really know much about music apart from the Radio 1 pop charts, which I had followed for years, and of course ‘Top of the Pops’, which I watched each week, there wasn’t much choice in those days , those pre-digital days. I had bought the hit single ‘The Wild Side of Life’ , Status Quo’s cover version of a Hank Thompson song, a sort of loud hard rocking version of a country classic, (similar to what US band , Jason and the Scorchers would do a decade later with their , pardon me, scorching version of Hank Williams’ ‘Lost Highway’). Anyway, with some money I had received for Christmas, as we did in those days, I had in mind to buy the parent album that ‘Wild Side..’ came from, namely ‘Blue for You’, a search through the record racks of Boots and John Menzies was not a successful one, but Menzies did have another Status Quo album, from 1975, just a year before, what the hell, I would buy it , Christmas money spent, excellent, I was never one who saved money as a youngster.

So I took the LP home, in the John Menzies carrier bag, not as credible or cool as the Other Record shop carriers I often saw folk carrying around in school, but I wasn’t really too bothered, I had an LP, my first LP.

The music was loud and it rocked, as they say, ‘Little Lady’, ‘Down Down’ and ‘Bye Bye Johnny’, a Chuck Berry song, were instant favourites, they were grrreat, as the famous cartoon tiger in the cereal advert of the time said.

This was far better than Slade, or Showaddywaddy, or any of the bands in the charts, better than disco, it wasn’t the new thing ‘punk rock’ , it was rock’n’roll, I think, not a million miles away from what would be called ‘ heavy metal ‘, a couple of years down the line.

The slower songs like ‘Broken Man’ tells the story of a man down on his luck, and is maybe a little country-ish in the sentiments of its lyrics, but I didn’t care about that back then.

‘Nightride’, and ‘Most of the Time’, are quite bluesy, again not something I was aware of at the time, they were slower songs, but they still rocked, played loud in the front room of my parental home, if my Dad told me to turn it down , maybe I was doing something right,

So travelling through time Tardis-like passing more years than I care to remember, earlier this year, I bought the cd of ‘On The Level’ online, a remastered version , with bonus tracks, including the Doors ‘Roadhouse Blues’, hearing this now, the years fly away, when times were simpler back to times when the world was a very different place, but the music is still stands the test of time, maybe not the most ‘credible’ choice for a first album purchase, but it was one which lead me to seek out more records to buy and listen to , and which affirmed my lifelong enthusiasm for rock music of all kinds.

A wee check online had Status Quo’s ‘Down Down’ given the thumbs up by the legendary D.J, the late John Peel, maybe the ‘Quo are ‘credible’ after all!!

It’s funny when I look back , but listening to Tommy Vance’s ‘Friday Rock Show’ in 1982, was how I came to discover this weird and wonderful album, along with reading the book ‘Up Tight ‘ by Victor Bockris and Gerard Malanga which I purchased at the now legendary 1-Up record store in Aberdeen as in those days music related books were not something you could buy at any book shop, and to be honest book shops in Aberdeen then were as thin on the ground as they are now. So rock related books could be bought at the likes of 1-UP, and The Other Record Shop’s book section ‘Inky Books’, and I bought a few there back in the old days, and on the odd trip to Glasgow or Edinburgh, when finances permitted.

Anyway , one Friday as I was listening to ‘TV on the Radio’, as he was known, he played a song by Lou Reed, ‘Waves of Fear’, from his new album ‘ The Blue Mask’ . It wasn’t the usual Tommy Vance fare, loud guitar based rock it was , but not heavy metal or ‘classic’ rock as was the norm on the show. It was great, I was looking for something different, so I bought that, and then followed it with ‘The Velvet Underground and Nico’, a re-release of their 1967 debut album. I found it to be quite off kilter at first, weird and wonderful at the same time, from the sublime ballads of ‘Sunday Morning’, and ‘I’ll Be Your Mirror’ to the perfect psychedelic pop of ‘Femme Fatale’ , and the basic rock’n’roll of ‘I’m Waiting for the Man’, and ‘Run , Run , Run to the slower ‘All Tomorrow’s Parties’, with Nico’s almost spoken vocal. I never got the ‘The Black Angel’s Death Song’, or ‘European Son’ right away, as they were a bit too avant garde for my tastes at the time, but they soon grew on me, like all good music does.

What was this music? Experimental? Psychedelic? It was certainly the polar opposite to the up-beat positivity of the ‘Flower Power’ music of the era, their lyrics didn’t promote the ‘Age of Aquarius’ but described the lowlife world of darkness, drugs and sex and led the album to be banned from radio play in New York.

In 1982, it was a bit of a cult item, a cool accessory to have, and the Velvets, as I came to know them, were very popular, hugely influential on artists like David Bowie, who had covered ‘Waiting for the Man ‘ back in the early 70s, ( this can be found on his Live at Santa Monica ’72 cd) on bands like Joy Division, The Jesus and Mary Chain, Orange Juice, Lloyd Cole and the Commotions, and Bauhaus, (who covered ‘Waiting For The Man’, with Nico on vocals), and also in US bands like Dream Syndicate, Sonic Youth, and the pre-stadium rock R.E.M, who weren’t averse to slotting a Velvets cover version into their set. Reading about them at the time in the ‘History of Rock’ magazine, that started up around the same time, I read that the Velvets were a forerunner of punk, and had inspired bands such as Television and the Talking Heads, Lou Reed was a poetic lyricist , a chronicler of lowlife , the people of the New York Underground , similar in many ways to Bob Dylan.

I never saw the Velvet Underground Live , they reformed in 1993 but it wouldn’t have been the same, would it? Nico passed away in 1988. I had managed to see her live in concert at the Aberdeen University Union in the early ’80s , not long after she released the album ‘Drama of Exile’. At the time I saw her, I really liked her debut solo album ‘Chelsea Girls’, which was absolutely brilliant with songs by Bob Dylan, Jackson Browne, and Tim Hardin, with the benefit of hindsight, I think this sounds a bit like an album by Marianne Faithfull or even Nick Drake, with the undertow of a string section sounding for all the word like those orchestral arrangements by Robert Kirby on ‘Bryter Layter’ or some other recording by Drake.

I have followed the career of Lou Reed for years until his passing, ‘New York’, ‘ The Raven’ and ‘Lulu’ with Metallica, are just some of the highlights, John Cale’s music I have followed also, favourites being, ‘Fragments of a Rainy Season’ with its highlights being a wonderful vocal / piano take on Leonard Cohen’s ‘Hallelujah’, and ‘Slow Dazzle ‘ with its cover of ‘Heartbreak Hotel’, which sounds like a precursor to the recent work of Nick Cave to these ears!

Playlist :Waiting for the Man- David Bowie.

All Tomorrow’s Parties- June Tabor and the Oyster Band.

Fear is a Man’s Best Friend- John Cale.

I’ll Keep it with Mine- Nico.

The first time I heard a Bob Dylan song in 1975, was a young scout at a weekend camp, in the grounds of Haddo House in Aberdeenshire, ‘Blowing in the Wind’ was sung in the guise of a campfire song . As I was only aware of the music in the Radio 1 charts, and bands and music on Top of the Pops, I had no idea where the song came from, maybe it was one selected from a book in the library, a guitar player’s ‘how to’ book, like Bert Weedon’s ‘Hold Down a Chord’ with which my brother later taught himself to play guitar . I later found out that it was written by Bob Dylan, and yes I had heard it before, it was on one of my parents’ records , ‘Hide and Seekers’, by the Seekers, an Australian folk-pop group of the ’60’s. As a kid, I recall songs sung around campfires at cub and scout camps , in the early -mid ’70s, which I know almost fifty years later, to be folk songs : ‘Ain’t Gonna Grieve (My Lord No More)’, a traditional spiritual with added words from the previous decade, I would think , ‘Oh you’ll never get to Heaven in a corn beef tin, ’cause God won’t let no Typhoid in , referencing the Typhoid outbreak in Aberdeen in the early ’60s, and ‘Oh You’ll never get to Heaven on a boy scout’s knee, ’cause a boy scout’s knee is too wobbly‘ , all very much of its time. ‘We Shall Overcome’, and ‘Michael Row The Boat Ashore’, I later learned were Pete Seeger songs, and ‘The Irish Rover’ with the background howling of attention seeking fellow scouts at the verse referencing the death of the captain’s dog , of course, this Irish traditional folk song was given a raucous revamp in 1987 by the Pogues and the Dubliners , when the Dubliners celebrated their 25th anniversary.

The songs I have mentioned, are just a few that come to mind, and there are certainly more where that came from perhaps for another day and blog.

This recollection from my childhood had me also recalling that Dylan had played ‘Blowin’ in the Wind’ when I saw him live in Glasgow in the late 1990’s touring with Van Morrison in support, promoting the ‘Time Out of Mind’ album. He played a beautiful solo acoustic version of this, and it certainly lingered in my mind for a long time after. From ‘The Freewheeling Bob Dylan’, ‘Blowin’ In the Wind’ was recorded in 1962, and Dylan played it at his first solo residency at Gerdes Folk City , the famous club in New York, and I would say its a classic , up there with the likes of Frank Sinatra’s ‘My Way’, or Elvis Presley’s ‘Heartbreak Hotel’ , music that has really stood the test of time. The lyrics are poetic and timeless, like a biblical passage, or poem from another age , something with meaning , of value.

When I first read Stephen King in the early ’80s , I was always pleased to see him quoting Dylan lyrics in his stories, as it chimed with my musical taste, also a short story, by William Gay, ‘The Man who knew Dylan’ which I have recently read . To me that’s always a good thing, as I have said in a previous blog, I do like a musical reference or quote in the books I read, maybe its just me. Anyhow, Dylan’s lyrics, along with that of Jim Morrison, and the likes of Jack Kerouac, were a formative influence on my early attempts at poetry, and in time I found my own voice.

I recall saying to a friend in the ’80s, in a boozy conversation in one of the busy pubs of Aberdeen, that the music of Dylan, and Elvis Costello would last forever, like that of Willie Nelson and Johnny Cash, maybe I was talking sense.

Most of you will know the song by Adele, ‘Make You Feel My Love’, which was popular in 2009, but maybe won’t know it is a Dylan song, I thought I would mention that.

I do like a cover version, and have a few favourite Dylan covers which I will share , ok a top 10 of them, in no particular order, no doubt these can all be found online, I haven’t checked ….yet.

All Along The Watchtower- Jimi Hendrix.

Girl from the North Country- The Waterboys.

Highway 61 Revisited- The Dylan Project ( feat. Steve Gibbons).

Death is Not The End- Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds.

I’ll Keep it with Mine- Marianne Faithfull.

One More Cup of Coffee- Robert Plant.

Everything is Broken- Lucinda Williams.

Sweetheart Like You- Chrissie Hynde.

What Was it That You Wanted- Willie Nelson.

Man In the Long Black Coat- Mark Lanegan.