I tried having my entire CD collection on a single private page of this blog. But it didn’t work. Will this alphabet approach work? The idea is to have a handy ref’, to prevent me duplicating purchases!
For my students, a little video I found online, talking about and demonstrating the signature fill from Jr Walker & The All Stars Motown soul classic, Shotgun.
A stone cold soul classic. Could this be what’s sometimes known as a ‘banger’? A one riff wonder: eight chugging bars of solid uplifting soulful grooving. Jackie Wilson sings his heart out. Just as he did his whole life, literally singing himself to death, onstage…
Some versions, such as the one YouTube offered up in ‘first place’ when I searched for the song itself, sound like they’ve had parts replaced with synthesised parts… Sacrilege!!!
The rather silly ‘fly guy n gal’ video, at the top of this blog posts, at least preserves the original sound. With the slightly out of tune guitar, in all its effervescent glory.
The guitar part.
The bass riffs.
I plan to record a version of this number myself, at some point. With me playing all the parts. Or at least all the parts I can. The lead vocal is a very scary prospect ! And do I do ye horns a capella? Or do I get some real horns recorded?
All such shenanigans will have to wait on getting a new computer and up to date DAW software, as my poor ol’ Mac is ailing, and can no longer even run Logic! A terrible state of affairs.
LYRICS
Your love, lifting me higher Than I've ever been lifted before So keep it it up Quench my desire And I'll be at your side, forever more
You know your love (your love keeps lifting me) Keep on lifting (love keeps lifting me) Higher (lifting me) Higher and higher (higher) I said your love (your love keeps lifting me) Keep on (love keeps lifting me) Lifting me (lifting me) Higher and higher (higher)
Listen… Now once, I was down-hearted Disappointment, was my closest friend But then you, came and it soon departed And you know he never Showed his face again
That's why your love (your love keeps lifting me) Keep on lifting (love keeps lifting me) Higher (lifting me) Higher and higher (higher) I said your love (your love keeps lifting me) Keep on (love keeps lifting me) Lifting me (lifting me) Higher and higher (higher)
Alright… I'm so glad, I've finally found you Yes that one, in a million girls And now with my loving arms around you, honey I can stand up, and face the world
Let me tell ya, your love (your love keeps lifting me) Keep on lifting (love keeps lifting me) Higher (lifting me) Higher and higher (higher) I said your love (your love keeps lifting me) Keep on (love keeps lifting me) Lifting me (lifting me) Higher and higher (higher)
Now sock it to me Hold me, you're my woman Keep my love going Higher and higher I said keep on lifting Lift me up mama
Yesterday I finally ‘finished’ transcribing the drums. It’s currently very hard to do that, currently, as I don’t have any software in which I can easily loop and/or slow down stuff. Or, rather, what software I do have I’m not so au fait with it. Net upshot, I’m not able to easily loop sections.
Finished is in inverted commas above, because under the circ’s, it’s as finished as I could make it after a few hours of cabin fever screen-burn-out! I may have to tweak it a bit,* as I both learn to play it myself, and teach with it.
To remedy these transcription issues, I just shelled out (poss for a second time?) for the full version of Amazing Slow Downer, an app by Roni Music. Poss’ one of the best most accurately named apps ever!? £12.99, at the time of my purchase.
Combined with Moises, which I will probably also wind up buying the full version of, I can isolate the drum tracks (or other elements), and slow them down, etc.
These are two great apps that I thoroughly recommend to all budding and long in the tooth musicians alike.
* For starters, there’s a very subtle and tasty little drum fill, rather buried in the mix, at about 1:36-7, which I really must cop! And it’s only really possible to hear it once everything but drums are removed, using Moises.
The last of Santana’s sublime run of jazz fusion albums, 1974’s Borboletta has some truly superb cuts, such as the epic eight minute jazz samba Promise Of A Fisherman, and the whole opening 15 minutes or so, starting with Airto and Flora Purim’s Spring Manifestations soundscape, and morphing or segueing seamlessly into the hypnotic Canto De Los Flores, and then classic Santana vocal numbers Life Is A New, and the super hard Latin Funk grooving of Give And Take.
This was Michael Shrieve’s last hurrah, and boy does he play well! His successor Ndugu Chancler is, whilst very different, no slouch, and can be heard giving it a lighter yet still fiery Latin jazz touch on several tracks. Stanley Clarke and the returning Doug Brown provide the low register action, and Tom Coster handles keys with perfect aplomb.
And as well as guesting as wild man of the jungle, with wife Flora in support, Airto adds both drums and percussion, the latter also supplied in spades by maestro Armando Peraza, and Jose Areas. Leon Patillo’s vocals are a distinct and new/unique flavour in the evolving Santana sound. I dig his composition Mirage!
Truly extraordinary music, played with fire and passion by terrific musicians. Essential!
First published way back in 1981, the title of this book is, I feel, a trifle misleading, inasmuch as a good deal of it is as much about SOE, British/Allied special forces, and French Resistance, operating behind the lines, as it is about northward march of the infamous Das Reich!
One criticism I have, which has several interconnected strands, has to do with the class to which Max Hastings himself and a good number of the public school educated British ‘cast’ of his subject belong. The slightly dewy-eyed self-love of all such elites is both rather unctuous and not a little odious. When Hastings rhapsodises over numerous rugger loving toffs, playing at war, even when it’s very real and may well cost their own and others lives, it’s hard not to wince a bit.
A secondary point arising from all this is the possible overstatement of British/Allied efforts, and a concurrent downplaying of the French natives’ own efforts. But rather than going over all this here, I’d urge the interested reader to simply get hold of Das Reich, and decide for themselves. Hastings summarises the complexity of such things very well.
The titular or headline story traces how Das Reich, pulled out of their role on the Ostfront, start out resting and refitting deep in Southwestern France, at Montauban. Initially, and rather inappropriately, they are tasked with fighting insurgents – with dire consequences – before finally heading for Normandy, in the aftermath of D-Day, to fulfil their proper role.
As already alluded to above, Das Reich also relates how the aforementioned insurgents, with help from Allied agents, seeks to impede the 2nd SS Pz Div’s northward journey. Thanks in particular to allegedly anti-maquis actions Das Reich carried out at Tulle and Oradour Sur Glane (with which latter subject The World At War TV series so memorably commences), there’s a frisson of horror in the story. Although, as Hastings points out, such barbarity was routine in Russia, where Das Reich learned the Nazi ways of war. Nor, indeed, are the Allies blameless; Hastings asks, rhetorically, can the area-bombers of Dresden really claim moral superiority over the SS butchers?
I found Das Reich a fascinating and exciting, well-researched and well-written, and – despite Hastings slightly patrician establishment vibes – pretty well-balanced account, of a very interesting episode in the campaigns of Normandy and beyond. Definitely recommended reading.
I find the story of Fred and Rose West and their victims grimly compelling. And Howard Sounes tells the story well. I’d seen Sounes as a talking head on TV doc’s about the Wests. He reads his own well-researched book well.
Bizarrely, perhaps, the story starts rather cozily, looking back to the family histories of Fred West and Rosemary Letts. These stories, grim enough in their own ways, are nonetheless fascinating, for the slices of lower level humdrum lives, and how these can have a devastating fallout over time.
It’s a story that starts off tragically, grows into something seedy, and then slowly grows into a barely creditable tale of monstrous depravity, bubbling below a surface that seemed relatively normal. But of course things in the West household were far from normal.
Fred’s life, from his time in Scotland, to his eventual arrest, is filled with petty crime and strange sexual shenanigans. His life as a self-employed handyman,
Many years ago now, I was a regular contributor to Drummer magazine. One of the things I did was a regular monthly classic album column, called Recycled. I enjoyed this so much I started posting reviews to Amazon’s UK website. I don’t know how long that went on for before I was invited to join the Vine programme.
The Amazon Vine programme lets you have free things in exchange for reviews. And for many years now I’ve enjoyed being a part of this programme. But today I’ve discovered I’ve been booted off the programme for ‘violating the terms’ of the programme. It’s a bit annoying, as I’m not sure what my ‘sin’ is!
But on the other hand, as one door closes, another, hopefully, opens. Over the years the programme evolved, and, having initially been mostly sent books, it shifted towards all sorts of random stuff. And it’d gotten to be quite overwhelming. So a break from this could be a good thing.
But I’ll be sorry if that’s the total and final end of my involvement. As I got a lot of great stuff over the years.
