BillF

Philly Joe Jones Indiana Jones Tennessee Ernie Ford

I think this will be the next PKD I re-read! Good choice! (My first reading.)

Billy Bob Thornton King Billy Bill Basie

Blues on WGBH with Brendan Hogan. Now playing: Jay McShann.

Cyrus Chestnut Johnny Burch Vic Ash

John Hicks Harold Mabern Cedar Walton

Ann Frank Frank Morgan Captain Morgan

Buon compleanno!

That's been my experience, too. I recently ordered for £6.48 a used copy of the 2CD Miles Davis item, The Complete Concert 1964; "My Funny Valentine" and "Four & More" from an American seller called wherehouse, which sent me the single CD My Funny Valentine. When I emailed them, they gave a full refund and told me to keep the disc. I've now made up the set by buying Four & More separately for £4.00. Sorry to hear about the jewel case business!

Philip K Dick, Flow My Tears, the Policeman Said

Best wishes, Paul!

Al Klink Niko Colin Sell

Bea Campbell Campbell Burnap Andy Warhol

Early rock - in various degrees of dilution - wears its black roots very clearly. The Beatles may have started out playing Chuck Berry but around 'A Hard Days Night'/'Help' it's the songs that draw on a more 'European' harmonic or melodic tradition that are best remembered. Whether this came from the American songbook or the 'light music' of the 60s era, I've no idea. But I think it's what sets them apart from the generlly blues based nature of most pop/rock at the time. Of course they frequently directly referenced their love of black musics - everything from 'Got to get you into my life' to 'Get Back'. But your 'Fool on the Hill's and 'Penny Lane's come from somewhere else. My Dad - a great fan of light classics, Vera Lynn, Sinatra etc - hated pop music and hated soul/gospel/blues type sounds (without knowing what they were). All he heard was screaming. Yet he loved many of the Beatles songs. They connected with the tradition he was used to that was pre-rock'n roll. And as a ten year old with little conscious awareness of music I immediately loved things like 'Hello, Goodbye' where Motown left me unmoved - mainly, I suspect, because the former fitted with the Radio 2/MOR/Rogers and Hammerstein musical world I grew up in. The magpie nature of their music certainly gave it great range and variety - the string quartet sound on 'Eleanor Rigby', baroque trumpet on 'Penny Lane' or avant-garde sounds on 'I am the Walrus'. One 'magpie' example I never realised until recently was 'Lady Madonna', which was based on Humphrey Lyttleton's 'Bad Penny Blues' - an example where the black influence is clear in the boogie-woogie piano, though the middle eight seems to go somewhere else. Valid and well informed comment.

Eva Peron Ake Persson Persse O'Reilly

Gil Evans Evan Evans Bill Evans

Farmer Giles Addison Farmer Mose Allison

M C Hammer Jan Hammer Pete Tong

Shorts McConnell Little Jimmy Scott Pee Wee Marquette

Frederik Pohl, Gateway

Eddie Gladden Happy Cauldwell Merrilegs

Barry McKenzie Sir Les Patterson Dame Edna Everage

Mack the Knife Blade Runner King C Gillette

I sure this was a very important factor. I was already a confirmed jazz listener when the Beatles albums were coming out and naturally sceptical about the attention they were receiving while my ears were trained on other (and generally ignored) new sounds from Coltrane, Herbie, Hubbard, Kirk, Shepp, etc. The Beatles' lurching from style to style had me saying this can't be all their own work, so Hot Ptah's comment on their producer seems very much to the point. However, now we know the truth about Teo Macero's part in Miles's "electric" work, I should as a jazz listener be less critical about how the Beatles' music came about, I suppose!

Tiger Woods Alfred Lion Joe Puma