3 Doors Closed

Watching Donald Trump become president of the United States might have left you feeling dismayed.

The fact that any musicians had anything to do with the inauguration was disturbing. 

Lots of them said no, of course. But not the band 3 Doors Down. And that left me feeling, at several removes, a little let down.

My old band the Shark Dentists used to play a good and thoughtful song by 3 Doors Down called "Be Like That". These were good guys, I thought. It goes to show you never can tell...

Trump is a huge 3 Doors Down fan apparently... Right or wrong, I've kind of gone off them...

Time Piece

Virgil Donati is an amazing drummer. Understatement. And now he is also a classical composer. He wedded these two talents together for "The Dawn Of Time", an album which is breathtaking in its ambition and achievement.

Any drummer who has attended a classical concert must have tapped a foot or two to some powerful rhythms – and wondered why the band doesn't have a proper drum kit and instead limits itself to a few timpani and a couple of cymbals.

But Donati hasn't just added drums to a series of orchestral pieces, he has enmeshed the drums into the music, giving them equal billing with the other instruments and sometimes taking centre stage. On top of this he has mixed up some stunning time signature changes and juxtapositions. And, as with Frank Zappa's orchestral work, he has created something new and urgent inside an established genre.

Wonder Man

The phrase "one-hit wonder" has seldom been as apt as it was when applied to Peter Sarstedt, the singer/songwriter who is one of the first casualties of 2017. He was – and long will be – remembered for "Where Do You Go To My Lovely", which was a wonderful song.

Somehow it shouldn't have worked, but somehow it did. It was slightly corny and it rolled along as if it were a sort of gentle "Like A Rolling Stone" in reverse: a rags-to-riches "how does it feel?" instead of a riches-to-rags one.

And similarly, you could never hear it too many times. It was a classic and a wonder...

Devilishly Good

It may sound slightly odd – Black Sabbath guitarist writes choral work for Birmingham Cathedral – but it should come as no great surprise that Tony Iommi has done just that.

There has always been a fine line between the devil's music and religious music – and sometimes no line at all.

Hank Williams, Johnny Cash, Elvis Presley, Jerry Lee Lewis, Bob Dylan, Van Morrison... need one say much more?

Great musicians ploughing the fields of blues, country, soul, funk, rock and even heavy metal have all been inspired by the spiritual – if not the outright religious.

In fact, the "devil's players" come well equipped (with passion and feeling and a few "sins" to confess) to get religion. Yet conventionally religious types, on the other hand, don't usually have what it takes to rock...