Country Girl

When my younger daughter was born and we settled on naming her Nevada Rose, I said that sounded like a great name for a country singer.

I couldn’t have forecast that 19 years later she’d be front of stage with her guitar and her beautiful voice... and with me on drums in the band backing her up.

One of the songs she was playing at this one-off performance was “Jolene” – but a much darker reading than Dolly Parton’s - so yes, my country singer prophecy sort of came true.

Except that this particular “country singer” has mastered piano, violin, organ and sax, and also the composing and conducting of classical and choral music.

And all that I definitely couldn’t have forecast... any more than all the rest that is still to come from this remarkable musician.

Greta the Great

Music is emotion incarnate. And sometimes it is almost too much to take in.

Despite the fact that I am no cricket aficionado, I found myself in The Long Room at Lord’s the other night for a Britain-Australia Society/South Australian Cricket Association dinner that marked not only the start of the Ashes matches but also the fact that some of the relics of Sir Don Bradman were on show in the MCC Museum.

I knew enough about The Don – as even we cricket non-aficionados call him – to get a buzz from seeing his bats and his blazer and his mum’s scrapbook of press cuttings.

But that was nothing to what was to come.

For The Don’s grand-daughter, Greta Bradman, was at the dinner. And she was there to sing. Which is something of an understatement. She is an accomplished operatic soprano with a voice whose power is such that one can scarcely believe it comes from her slight body.

The intensity of her voice stopped time in The Long Room, with the backdrop of the great cricket ground behind her, and a portrait of Sir Don looking down upon the scene.

And when she went from the classics to When You Wish Upon A Star without skipping a beat, the feeling that filled her and every one of us listening was electric.

Emotion. Music. Love. Greta Bradman exudes them all.

Friends Electric

I really love Brighton Electric studios.

I often hire a room there for solo drum practice. Because it's reasonably priced. The drum kits are good. And the staff know what they're talking about. It's a warren of studios, with bands of all sorts (but mainly young and loud) coming and going at all times.

The other day I did an early-morning session there before taking the train from Brighton into London for work, leaving my car near the studio.

I didn't get back until really late that night. And as I walked past the Electric, I could hear the sound of drums coming through the windows.

It was a great sound and produced a great feeling...

I'd done the morning shift and now someone was doing the night shift.

This is a music factory, where the music is a constant, and the people who come in for an hour or two hours or a day are the factor that is ever-changing.

A bit like the world...

The Present Day Drummer Refuses To Die

Well, he’s still alive... just.

And at 73, Ginger Baker is still playing with almost cast-iron authority.

Seeing him in concert this week left me reflecting on the first time I saw him play – 46 years ago – and this, perhaps the last time I will see him play.

“You just want to see me die on stage,” said Ginger, coming back on for the encore. “And I’m not joking...”

He’d just finished a resounding Aiko Biaye that had just as much energy as when he played it live with his big band, Airforce, in the 1970s... even though his troops are now down to just three heavyweight musicians: Alec Dankworth on bass, Pee Wee Ellis on sax and Abass Dodoo on percussion.

I think Ginger made the odd mis-hit and certainly dropped a few sticks, but for a man who seemed to have considerable difficulty walking on and off stage, and for whom talking seemed to be a breath-draining ordeal, he was on remarkable form, dictating the play with assuredness, invention and an “I’m in charge” arrogance that you wouldn’t want to argue with.

For once, he seems to be doing what he wants, and with the musicians he wants to do it with. There was even a smile occasionally breaking through that taut grimace beneath the shades.

How much longer will this true legend of drumming be with us? I have learned over the past 40 years that there are other drummers who are as great as Ginger – and possibly more versatile. But you could have said the same about Gene Krupa... 

These real drumming legends are not technicians... they are musicians and magicians... and they are inspirational, heroic and, of course, also flawed and mortal.

There won’t be another Krupa. There won’t be another Baker... 

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...