Musical Memories of Steve Carleysmith
In my early teens I built a two valve radio with earpiece, tuning in to a fading Radio Luxembourg, and lying in bed listening to BBC oddities such as The Clitheroe Kid. My parents listened to the wireless quite a lot, and to me a number of theme tunes are evocative of that time, such as Workers' Playtime, Forces Favourites, and Music While You Work. These were designed to support people's morale and productivity during and after the second World War. In 1940 Eric Coates wrote Calling All Workers which became the theme tune for Music While You Work. Eric Coates also wrote the well known march for the film The Dam Busters.
Friday Night is Music Night on BBC Radio 2 is the world's longest running live orchestral music programme, a home to lots of light music like that. My wife and I went twice to live performances, and it was interesting to hear them joining into the live broadcast after the warm up at the start of the show.
I'll now move on to the very well know song Jerusalem. For me, this has several connotations. As you may know, this is the WI anthem. My mother was in the local WI choir, and I remember this being sung at WI events. At my school Jerusalem was always sung as the last thing at the end of term assembly, and so it gives me the good feeling of breaking up for the holidays. As a student, I went to a lot of Proms concerts, and went to a Last Night, where this tune always features. I don't see William Blake's wacky words as overtly religious. The "mills" are probably not industrial buildings; some say that the "mills" refer to the power of the established church. The "green and pleasant land" may refer to the only countryside Blake knew well, around Felpham near Bognor Regis. The poem is certainly about building a better society. Parry who wrote the tune was worried about its association with an extreme right wing movement at the time, but the tune and song were saved by being adopted by the women's suffrage movement. The version that I will play is sung by Katherine Jenkins who I saw with Darcey Bussell at the O2 Arena in London in 2007 (with good seats near the front of the sell out show). I'll come back to Blake later.
Around the house when I was a child, my father rarely cooked or did the laundry, but his role was to clean the house at weekends. This he could only accomplish with loud classical music playing, and so this led to what I call his "vacuum cleaner music" - generally Beethoven symphonies, or Mendelsohn, or other suitably loud music such as Handel's Water Music Suite. This was composed in 1777 for King George I, loud enough to sound across the River Thames, and also above the sound of the Hoover. For me, his is so reminiscent of those days. And it's great music!
4. I quite liked classical music, but saw it as my parents' thing. I think I must have got a lot of information from NME (New Musical Express). I was into alternatives such as the Velvet Underground. In 1967 I bought a copy of the famous Velvet Underground & Nico vinyl (banana on the front) but it was warped, as were all the copies in the shop, so I got my money back - something I deeply regret! It's now rated one of the most influential albums ever. Anyway, as well as the Velvets, with a group of friends I had an interest in the blues. I don't have many delta blues type records myself as my friend Ross Nimmo had a huge selection, and we'd listen to his. We thought Robert Johnson was one of the best. He supposedly sold his soul to the devil. This is Cross Road Blues from 1936.
4. Of course, there are fantastic driving versions of Crossroads by Eric Clapton, with the late lamented Jack Bruce, and violent Ginger Baker, when they were Cream. But I'm not going to play one of those. Eric Clapton moved to John Mayall's Bluesbreakers in 1965 and produced the Beano album - one that I did not take back to the shop! I've seen Eric Clapton live twice, most recently with Helen Logan, and they were great shows, and he's made fantastic albums (of which I have several). However there is a raw energy is his early work that I find quite spine-tingling. Here is All My Love an Otis Rush song, performed by John Mayall and Bluesbreakers with Clapton in 1966.
5. My parents bought a new stereophonic radiogram, the latest thing in music systems. Eventually I found it rather tinny for my music such as John Mayall, and so I made two large loudspeakers in chipboard cabinets which I attached to the radiogram. My parents must have been very indulging of me!
In the days before cassettes, I bought a second hand reel to reel portable tape recorder and used that to listen to the Bluesbreakers in my car, an ancient Hillman Husky. The tape recorder took huge batteries - not sure how I afforded them. Jimi Hendrix was also a hero and I have albums including the infamous Electric Ladyland as here. However I feel more connected to Eric Clapton who was god for a while.
In contrast to all this power guitar, my friends (and my sister) started listening to classical music and Gustav Mahler was popular. For the teenage angst there were songs on topics such the death of children, and I had the lovely Das Lied Von der Erde, the Song of the Earth. His 5th symphony was the source of the emotional and wistful music for the 1971 film Death in Venice, and increased his popularity at that time. However, Mahler did do some jollier stuff, and the 1st and 4th symphonies are a good listen. Here is some of No. 4 - lovely stuff. Mahler - Symphony No. 4 in G Major.
6. In about 1969 I saw Peter Green's Fleetwood Mac at Queen Mary College in London, a memorable show. On the College juke box, the copies of Green Manalishi and Black Magic Woman became worn out. Fleetwood Mac have survived remarkably in many forms and with various members, with extraordinarily high musical standards. Christine McVie you'll know, and she was in Chicken Shack when they came to University College jazz & blues club where I was on the committee. I had a drink at the bar elbow to elbow with Christine Perfect as she then was. Voted best female vocalist in the UK around that time. By the way, Chicken Shack with San Webb were support at a John Mayall concert which I attended at the Dome in Brighton. Back to Fleetwood Mac, and out of their personal angst came great popular music. This is Little Lies from 1987 from Tango in the Night, co-written and sung by Christine McVie with Stevie Nicks, Lindsey Buckingham, John McVie and Mick Fleetwood. 1936.
7. I've always liked British folk music, but it can be an intimidating scene with experts and strong views. I've dipped in and have a few folk albums. We camped at the Towersey Folk Festival many years ago when the Oyster Band was popular. A few years ago I saw Fairport Convention at the Festival Theatre in Chichester. My original list included Sandy Denny in Who Knows Where the Time Goes, but you probably all know that well, and we can't have too much crying. I saw the McCarthy family in a celebration concert at the Royal Albert Hall. This tune, Scan Tester's Country Stepdance, is on my Rough Music CD by Eliza Carthy. The tune comes from a Sussex concertina player Lewis 'Scan' Tester (1886-1972).
8. I've had several great holidays on the west coast of Ireland near Dingle, and the fantastic fiddle playing takes me back to being in those pubs. You may care to note that Martin Carthy (her father) comes to Brighton in June. If you like folk, I'd recommend the Unthanks that I saw last year in St Bartholomews Church Brighton.
My two long term favourite pieces of music are probably Rimsky Korakov's Scheherazade and Berlioz' Symphonie Fantastique. I like the Berlioz for the wacky story about a drug addled lover and his visions of death at the scaffold. Here's a taste.
At a young age I was taken to the film of the musical Gigi with Maurice Chevalier. I was about eight years old and thought that it was absolutely awful, and it put me off musicals for many years. It was only when I saw Sondheim's A Little Night Music in the 1970's that I realised musicals could be a bit more gritty and thought provoking. However there is no room here for "Send in the Clowns" et al. Sondheim & Styne's Gypsy at the Festival Theatre in Chichester with Imelda Staunton was amazing. Lesley Garrett is one of my favourite singers - I have several of her CDs, and I've seen her live in Worthing. She is known as an opera singer, but I saw her in the musical Carousel in London - a great show. Here is Lesley Garrett singing You'll Never Walk Alone from Rogers & Hammerstein from Carousel - you might know this! It includes the Grimethorpe Colliery Band.
Like Jerusalem, this is a multi purpose song. Liverpool FC, Celtic, cup finals, inauguration of Barack Obama (sung by Renee Fleming who'll well come back to). Hearing the Grimethorpe Colliery Band reminds me of the miner's strike and the associated angst with foolishness and stubborness on both sides of the argument. And the horrible irony is that, for environmental reasons, coal is becoming an unusable fuel.
9. Let's move from Grimethorpe to California. Carlos Santana formed his band in San Francisco in 1966. A great guitarist and showman. I have his Abraxas album, much played, and sold in great numbers. In 2010 I saw Santana at the O2 in London, at the age of 63. His Black Magic Woman is a reworking of a famous Fleetwood Mac song written by Peter Green. At the O2 this was the third song that he played, to great acclaim. My wife and I played this a lot at dinner parties.
10. Talking of dinner parties, my wife Chris was a great cook, and in the kitchen she loved to listen to CDs of the satirical review group Fascinating Aida. They first came to popular attention on a Radio 4 evening review many years ago. I can't remember which programme but maybe Ned Sherrin was involved. My wife and I saw Fascinating Aida's review show three times over the years, in Brighton and Worthing. They became most famous perhaps for the Cheap Flights Youtube song which went viral. You remember that? We played This Table at my wife's funeral, nearly three years ago.
11. Going back to schooldays, in the sixth form we had trips to the opera. I started with Richard Strauss' Elektra which as you may know is a heavy modernist expressionist opera not to everyone's taste. I liked it, survived and have loved opera ever since. My parents did not like opera much, and it was not played at home. I'm not an opera bufff, but I enjoy the involving spectacle and experience. It's like playing squash - you just concentrate on the moment to the exclusion of all else. Get into the flow. Opera can be good on TV or DVD, but it's best experienced live. For example, I've enjoyed seeing Mozart at Glyndebourne, Alban Berg at the English National Opera, Richard Strauss at the Royal Opera House, Johann Strauss in Cardiff, and Bizet in Brighton. Richard Strauss is probably my favourite opera composer. I've seen Richard Strauss' Der Rosenkavalier three times, most recently last summer in Cardiff. This is a trio towards the end of the opera, including the famous soprano Renee Fleming. This was Renee Fleming's last major role before retirement. Richard Strauss chose this as his funeral music.
12. Soon after my wife died, by chance I saw my ex-boss from 20 years earlier at a blues session on Worthing pier. His wife Sue invited me to a blues weekend holiday break, with colleagues from work, mostly retired, and their partners and friends. People were kind and understanding of my situation, and I now go twice a year to these music weekends. Helen is a long standing (founder?) member of the blues weekend group, and is good friends with the wife of someone I sat next to at work 20 years ago. There's a wide range of music and good dancing to the livelier blues and rock songs. Guy Tortora did a great set one evening. Paul Jones on BBC Radio 2 said "Excellent songwriting. Subtle, beautiful . . . and lovely slide guitar!". Here is Guy Tortora's The Damage Was Done written just three years ago.
13. The most recent music weekend was Stones and Bowie. I thought the Stones tribute band not great, but the Bowie evening was by Starman, who is not an impersonator, but specialises in Bowie's life and music. He was excellent. As a reminder, I'm not going to play Starman by Starman, but go to the original. This is Starman by David Bowie himself. The whole Ziggy Stardust thing was wacky, with aliens saving Earth or whatever. It did remind me of William Blake, and a quick Google showed that others had made that comparison. Anyway, this brings us up to date with my life story in music, with a song from 1972!