This was meant to post Wednesday, but the date says Tuesday. I like Wednesdays because of happy memories, young people, when we used to get weekly Variety on Wednesdays. We also get advance copies of the Arts and Leisure Section of the Sunday New York Times today, although this often spills over to Thursday. It's also a "wonderful day" as the divine Miss Seldes says, because it's matinee day on Broadway which means, "we get to do it twice!" It's also when Billboard releases the Soundscan charts (but ya gotta subscribe to get 'em!)
Late yesterday afternoon I took and N or the R Subway down to City Hall Park to see Disney on Broadway perform songs from "Beauty and the Beast," "The Lion King" and "Tarzan" on a stage right outside J&R Music. It was a very slick presentation and the casts sounded and looked great. (Full disclosure: My office works on these shows and we are paid by them weekly). While down below Canal Street I did go into the store and picked up the new Tom Petty album. Really smart packaging by Danny Clinch and others. Don't know when I will get to it, but it is something to look forward to listening to driving upstate. Also picked up the Richard Thompson DVD/CD package "1000 Years of Popular Music" on Cooking Vinyl (2 CDs and DVD on sale for $19.99).
It is a great conceit. Literally 1000 years of popular song from "Sumer is Icumen In" to "Oops!...I did it Again." That would be 1260AD to 2000AD.
I first became aware of this several years back through an item in the late, lamented ICE magazine. I was intrigued that Thompson was covering early music through pop (including The Who's "Legal Matter," ABBA's "Money, Money, Money," Prince's "Kiss," etc.) The guy is so smart and so important in contemporary music. This package is an easy way in to the work of one of the most important musical artists of the last century.
I have to say that I resisted his work for 30 years. When he was with Fairport Convention, the band was on Island Records, the hippest and most important small label of the 1970s -- Roxy Music, Traffic, Cat Stevens, Sparks, Robert Palmer, Free, Nick Drake, etc. And that was just the white kids. Bob Marley! Yet, I always found the British folk thing to be kind of dull.
Listening to it now is revelatory and I'm thrilled that there is an amazing catalog of music I can discover and learn to enjoy. He is a fantastic musician.
The earlier release of the concert performance of "1000 Years" (available on the fan club site) has more fun stuff on it. I guess it was either too expensive to include Beatles and ABBA songs, or he couldn't get permission. You can compare the two releases here first release and here second release.
White Bicycles, the new book by Joe Boyd celebrates some of the Fairport Convention story. It is such a good read. A literate (Ivy League, actually) take on "making music in the 1960s." The UK edition and has blurb from Brian Eno: "The best book about music I have read in years." He speaketh with great truth and wisdom.
Make it so.
