Nick Drake - River Man

I believe it was my son that first introduced me to Nick Drake. He had a significant influence on so many artists during his short life, he died aged 26 in strange circumstances in 1974.

He left behind a fairly small but exquisite body of work, the tragedy being that he came to fame after he died.

Someone once said you never forget the first time you listened to Nick Drake. Mine was the first of hundreds. See what you think…

Led Zeppelin - How Many More Times (Danmarks Radio 1969)

The studio recording of this track was done in 1968 for their first album “Led Zeppelin”, however this introductory performance is a shockingly good, Live exposé of their individual artistry.

"I’d like to introduce Led Zeppelin to you" and rock ‘n roll was changed forever. This audience were typical of the day, very reserved, and you wonder if they understood what they were witnessing. This was 1969 for goodness sake! The drummer, John Bonham and Robert Plant the singer were just 20 years old, Jimmy Page lead guitar is 25 and John Paul Jones on base is 24. Already each one is a master of his art.

I personally feel incredibly lucky to be born when I was. At this point I had just turned 18 and starting out as a mature student. We had just lived our teenage years through the most incredible decade with The Beatles influence and here we were poised for the next Rock, Folk and Hippy revolution. For me, this started with a bang as in the early Summer of 1970 at Shepton Mallett, I attended one of the forerunners of Glastonbury, the Bath Festival of Blues and Progressive Music

The Music Gods of the future were assembled in what seems now like an incredible set list that included Fairport Convention, Johnny Winter, Steppenwolf, John Mayall, Canned Heat, Pink Floyd, Santana, The Byrds, Moody Blues, Frank Zappa and the Mothers of Invention, Led Zeppelin, Donovan(Guest) and Jefferson Airplane.

It rained apart from when Zeppelin came on and then the sun came out. They were late because Robert Plant got stuck in a Bath traffic jam, so the Hell’s Angels went to get him. Meanwhile, Donovan was in the crowd and to our rapturous astonishment went on stage and played a set!

Here is a silent clip of this ground breaking Festival

In closing, many of us will know and recognise Led Zeppelin's top, commercially successful tracks… “Whole Lotta Love” and “Stairway to Heaven” (I will post these at some point), but I wanted to lay down some of the early beginnings of Led Zeppelin first and also cover some of their lesser known work.

Nightwish Got Me!

What’s the connection between Phantom of the Opera and Symphonic Metal? I would suggest the Dutch singing sensation Floor Jansen.

I was browsing through my usual YouTube channels and stumbled across this little show, very popular in Holland, called “Beste Zangers” (Best Singers). The performer’s names meant nothing to me, however I love this particular Opera and am always reminded of duets between Sarah Brightman and various others going way back. This clip seemed to be getting a lot of attention and so I listened and was immediately struck by Floor’s high octane voice. Watch it through and you’ll see what I mean.

The actual performance for the show was in April 2019 at resort Atzaró on Ibiza Island. Hosted by Jan Smit. Not only Jansen & Poort ( and the other 5) sang live, also the Marcel Fisser band performed live! They also deserve credit.

Well that got me curious and I discovered that, apart from being super popular on this current Dutch TV series, Floor was a long-standing member of the Finnish ‘Symphonic Metal’ group called Nightwish since around 2013. A quick search on YouTube and I fell right into a Nightwish number called Ghost Love Score performed in 2013 at Wacken Open Air which is an open-air heavy metal music festival. It takes place annually in summer in the village of Wacken in Schleswig-Holstein, northern Germany.

If you thought the above was good, fight any aversions you might have to the ‘Metal’ genre and watch this next clip of that performance to the end. You might gain a new respect for Floor Jansen and may even, like me, become hooked on multiple plays of this and  other Nightwish performances out there in YouTube land!

Girl from the North Country - Bob Dylan

I remember being laid up in bed ill, probably 1967/8 and well after Bob Dylan’s album “The Free Wheelin’ Bob Dylan” was released. My mate lent me a stack of his albums to listen to and that turned me into a Dylan junkie. Besides being big into the usual Beatles, R&B and Progressive Rock bands of the era, we were also enjoying the hippy, protest and folk movement culture and this guy became the mouthpiece for a generation.

I selected this track from the album, a love song aching with nostalgia, because it is one of my absolute favourites from him. I have discovered this live, set-piece performance, which is obviously not quite the studio quality of the album track, but in B&W takes on mood of the lyrics.

Adele – When We Were Young (Live)

I could listen to this lady untiringly. Now waiting for her to burst forth with her next heart stopping album, “30”, slated for release in Dec 2019.

Her last studio album “25” was released nearly 4 years ago. I have selected this track from the album to shine a light on her vocal attributes. “When We Were Young” amply demonstrates Adele’s power, low and high range capability, the clever shading and textures and changes of register she uniquely employs. She’s also not afraid to use voice breaks to render emotion, although apparently she had a cold in this session which maybe helped.