Featured Album:
067 | Gerry Mulligan & Johnny Hodges | Mulligan Meets Hodges | Verve MG V 8367 | 1960
Alternative Liner Notes
Many jazz enthusiasts cite this album as one of the great meet ups in the genre and really if we think about it, it’s a bit of a no brainer. What could possibly go wrong? This recording date in Los Angeles, 17 November 1960 to be precise, saw two giants working side by side, one on the small sax, the other on the big one, and both complementing one another equally. From the opening few bars of ‘Sunny’, it becomes obvious that these two musicians were meant to play with each other, the playful interplay between the alto and baritone skittering along with such ease, its hard to imagine but smiles coming from behind the recording console, whoever that might be, the notes are sketchy. What is known for certain is that Mulligan and Hodges were in good company in front of the said console, with Claude Williamson on piano, Buddy Clark on bass and Mel Lewis on drums. In places these three musicians sparkle, not least on ‘What’s the Rush’, where Williamson’s piano does most of the talking. The compositions are divided equally between Mulligan and Hodges, with the two musicians bringing three originals each to the party. With Gerry Mulligan steeped in the West Coast sound and the one-time Duke Ellington sideman being New York through and through, it must’ve been a refreshing change for Hodges to be flown over to California for this special date. I can’t imagine my record collection without this one in it.
Playlist:
Mean to Me – Buck Clayton (Songs for Swingers)
Sunny – Gerry Mulligan & Johnny Hodges (Mulligan Meets Hodges)
Brilliant Corners – Thelonious Monk (Brilliant Corners)
Topsy – Paul Bley (Paul Bley)
Fat Mama Blues – Mezzrow Bechet Quintet (Gone Away Blues)
Back Beat – Gerry Mulligan & Johnny Hodges (Mulligan Meets Hodges)
Alabama Jubilee – Muggsy Spanier (And His Dixieland Band)
Lullaby of the Leaves – Grant Green (Grant’s First Stand)
18 Carrots for Rabbit – Gerry Mulligan & Johnny Hodges (Mulligan Meets Hodges)
Archive Alternative Liner Notes
Featured Album:
375 | Richard and Linda Thompson | Pour Down Like Silver | Island ILPS 9348 | 1975
Alternative Liner Notes
In the mid-1970s I distinctly recall wandering into the Rare and Racy record shop on Devonshire Street in Sheffield, and with my limited budget, held up and compared two LPs, the first being the Beatles’ so-called White Album, which I’d heard quite a lot about, the other, not so. Richard and Linda Thompson’s third album together featured extreme close up portraits, Richard on the front and his wife on the back and both suitably attired in their Sufi garb. On that occasion I came away with the Beatles album, complete with all the freebies that came with it, yet I returned shortly afterwards to pick up this obscure folk record (to me at any rate). I’ve confessed before to having a slow burn rection to Richard Thompson’s singing voice and only really came around to it with the release of Hand of Kindness a few years later, though no such reservations marred my appreciation of the voice of Linda, one of the true greats when it comes to warbling folk songs. The title Pour Down Like Silver comes from the lyric of ‘Night Comes In’, one of the best songs on the album, though that accolade must surely go to the album closer ‘Dimming of the Day’, a superb performance by both husband and wife, a song rooted in the Sufi tradition. If there is a spiritual theme to this album, then it’s due to the fact that Thompson, a recent convert to the that religion, was instructed by his Mullah to put down his electric guitar for good or to use it for the purpose of God. Other notable songs here include ‘Streets of Paradise’, ‘For Shame of Doing Wrong’ and ‘Beat the Retreat’, the couple joined by several equally notable musicians including a couple of fellow Fairporters, Daves Mattacks and Pegg, both Nic Jones and Ali Bain on the fiddle and the ever-present John Kirkpatrick on accordion.
Playlist:
Sweet Lorraine – Uriah Heep (The Magician’s Birthday)
No Matter What – Badfinger (No Dice)
Streets of Paradise – Richard and Linda Thompson (Pour Down Like Silver)
Ohio – Neil Young (Journey Through the Past)
Deportees – Byrds (Ballad of Easy Rider)
It Don’t Bother Me – Bert Jansch (It Don’t Bother Me)
Dimming of the Day – Richard and Linda Thompson (Pour Down Like Silver)
This Time Around/Owed to G – Deep Purple (Come Taste the Band)
Oh England My Lionheart – Kate Bush (Lionheart)
The Poor Boy is Taken Away – Richard and Linda Thompson (Pour Down Like Silver)
Ballad of Hollis Brown – Nazareth (Loud ‘n’ Proud)
Archive Alternative Liner Notes
Al Wilko is a radio presenter and singer/songwriter from Doncaster, who has presented radio shows for many years, including specialist programmes covering Folk & Roots music, World music and Jazz, plus Rock music from the pre-Punk rock era, hence his weekly Flick the Dust Off show, which looks at albums released between the mid-60s and mid-70s. Al also spins Jazz and Blues records once a month at the popular Donny Scott’s Jazz & Blues session held on the first Saturday afternoon of the month at the Doncaster Brewery & Tap, together with co-running the Fingers & Frets session, held on the fourth Thursday of the month at the Little Plough in Doncaster. This experimental acoustic ‘sing-around’ encourages performers to leave their visual gadgets and lyric sheets at home.
Al’s radio shows are broadcast weekly on Sine FM:
The Jazz File, Tuesday 8pm, repeat Wednesday 1pm
Flick the Dust Off, Friday 10am, repeat Saturday 9am
