Another Door Closes

It's sad to hear of the passing of Ray Manzarek.

I first heard The Doors - performing The End - courtesy of a progressive English teacher who played the final track of their debut album to us in a poetry lesson early in 1967. He had an import copy - and as soon as I could, I went out and bought it.

It remains one of the finest records ever made. Not just for The End... but for every darkly brilliant track. And not just for Jim Morrison's remarkable voice, or Manzarek's trademark keyboards, or Robbie Kreiger's unsettling guitar, or John Densmore's incredibly precise yet emotional drumming.

The Doors were (like the Beatles) the sum of their parts - and then some. But the Doors were hipper and bigger and far more dangerous than the Beatles could ever hope to be.

Singing Queen

In 1974 I was writing a record review page on a provincial evening newspaper. The man from Epic Records used to turn up every so often with a box of new releases, and one that came with no information at all was called Waterloo by Abba (which didn't sound like a great name for a band).

I can still remember hearing it for the first time (which is pretty much the same as every time ever since) and writing my one paragraph that said there was no doubt this was a number one hit single.

I always loved Abba. Right from when I had absolutely no idea who they were.

And now Agnetha is back among us. The alleged recluse is suddenly everywhere, promoting her new album.

In one interview she talked in detail about singing The Winner Takes It All, recorded in the midst of the pain of her divorce - and written by Bjorn, the husband she was parting from. She reckons it was Abba's finest moment, and it's hard not to agree. It is heartbreak transformed into music... something that so many songwriters attempt to achieve. But here you had the intensity of the doomed couple between them producing something that no one else could.

There still seem to be tears in Agnetha's voice in the new songs... such as When You Really Loved Someone and I Keep Them On The Floor Beside My Bed.

Tears and a diamond-hard resilience.

She's still got it. And I'll still buy it.

The Gary Clark Experience

The new Hendrix. It's a bit like the new Dylan. Except Dylan always was - and is - the new Dylan.

Jimi has the disadvantage (and advantage) of having been dead for 40 years or so.

The new Hendrix, they say, is Gary Clark Jr. Well, he is and he ain't.

Some are calling him the new Hendrix because he's black. But Jimi was as white as he was black, and, if anything, his shade of white was rainbow-coloured.

The real question is: is Gary Clark Jr any good. And the answer is: yes.

Like Hendrix, he goes beyond the bounds. He takes the guitar off the track. And he manages to play at tangents to where one might expect him to be.

If Jimi were still alive, he probably would not be playing a million laid-back miles from Eric Clapton's (rather lovely) Old Sock album. But if is a big word.

Forget Jimi for a moment. Check out Gary Clark Jr...