The Magnificent Goldberg

I haven't bought this CD, because I have it in different forms. It's two very different LPs. "Workin' out", which I have on LP, features Lytle and it's a good solid bit of Soul Jazz - not the best by either, but good and solid. "The soul man" features Wayne Shorter - I have this on a CD twofer with "Soul food" in another unfortunate combination. "Soul food" and "Workin out" would have made a good pairing. The album with Shorter doesn't, in my view, go well with either coupling. If you're really interested in Shorter, rather than Timmons or Lytle, which I think is the case, you'd do better to look for the Japanese cheapo edition of "Soul man" which came out there for 1,000 yen a couple of years ago. MG

The Big Bopper Buddy Holly Ritchie Valens

Time for a bit of class here. MG

True, Dorsey is definitely the alto soloist on "So Rare", but I believe that Stabile does play on some of the tracks on the subsequent LP, which was issued after JD's death. Tommy died two weeks after "So Rare" was recorded. Did he actually get a chance to hear the record? Always wondered how come that record was made for Fraternity, which was a mid-west country label, I think. Anyone any ideas about that? MG

Charlie Gillette Phil Wilkinson Reuben Blades

Not without the tonic of a severe , protracted economic downturn . Somewhere or other, Galbraith pointed out that economists had mostly been concerned to solve the LAST problem that confronted the economy. This led, during the post-war years, to measures to ensure that employment was secure; thus solving the Depression But in placing full employment at the forefront of economic thinking, Governments, and the economists who advised them, printed money and created the inflation that Friedman & co's policies were designed to combat (but which also had other effects). Things keep changing and do also remain the same; so there's always going to be a need for those policies to be dragged out of the cupboard in the ninth pit of hell from time to time. There is probably no such thing as a happy medium - not even Horace Silver's. MG

Max Baer Bobby Bare Mr Bear

Good quote; I think it's from "Money: whence it came and where it went". Is that right? MG

Thank you. I don't think it has to be rich, just suburban. MG

Well, if you were to extend it to the R&B charts, you could include records by Charlie Parker, Dizzy Gillespie, Cecil Payne, Johnny Hodges, Illinois Jacquet, Gene Ammons, Don Byas and King Pleasure (and that's excluding all the big bands). MG

Vlad the Impaler Basil the Bulgar-slayer The Hammer of the Scots

I think I agree with you, but Scarsdale sounds like an almost derelict Yorkshire mining village. Please explain that bit. MG

Lilian Gish Walter Bishop ValerieB

The arrangers I get the most PLEASURE from, whether they're good, bad or indifferent, are Jimmy Mundy Hank Crawford (for making small bands sound big) and whoever did the arrangements for the Erskine Hawkins orchestra, cos they're so low and funky. MG

Nice. MG

Little Brother Soul (Nat's pseudonym) Booker Little Johnny Lytle

This is a peach cobbler - looks different. Probably made differently, too. MG

Here's a pic of rhubarb crumble MG

I like rhubarb crumble. Do Americans have crumble? MG Don't they call it 'cobbler'? :rsmile: Oh, is that what "cobbler" is? Can some American translate this for me, please? MG

And I did forget Jimmy Dorsey's 1956 revival of "So rare", which made #2. MG

Oh, you mean, you can only get this as a download, not as a CD? I missed this when it came out on that Itialian cheapo series - almost all of them were reissues, but a handful weren't. MG

David Rose/Andre Previn - Like young made #22 on the R&B chart and #46 on the pop chart in 1959. Strange compilation. Odd to have Herbie's "Watermelon man" rather than Mongo's, and not to have "Chameleon" or "Rockit". Odd to have Mongo's "Yeh yeh" rather than Georgie Fame's. Strange to have no "Mister Magic" from Grover Washington. Nor neither "Gimme some more" or "Pass the peas" by Fred Wesley & ther JBs. Nor JB's "Night train" (nor Jimmy Forrest's for that matter), "Honky tonk", "Aint it funky now" etc etc, nor any Bill Doggett hits. Ernie Freeman, who's rarely mentioned, except by Chris & me, had a #4 hit with "Raunchy". Also MIA are John Handy's "Hard work", and Eddie Harris' "Listen here" (OK, so "Exodus" is his ration?) Also missing are Ray Charles' "Rockhouse", "One mint julep" and "Booty butt" (oh, only the R&B chart for the last). Jack McDuff's "Theme from electric surfboard" also made the pop charts. Oh, and Rusty Bryant's "All night long" was on them, too. And Hugh Masekela's "Grazin' in the grass" (#1). Harold Betters' "Do anything you wanna" was a great cut that the Ace folks really ought to know about and surely would have put in. Oh, Quincy Jones anyone? "Killer Joe" and "Money runner" were both hits. And King Curtis? Kool & the Gang's early singles? Chuck Mangione's "Feels so good". Herbie Mann's "Memphis underground", "Supermann" or "Hijack"? Wes Montgomery had a pop hit with "Windy". And, as noted in another thread, George Benson had a few - some were jazz records. Oh, I nearly forgot - Phil Upchurch's "You can't sit down". Oh, and what's wrong with Kenny Ball's "Midnight in Moscow" and Chris Barber's "Petite fleur"? And Coleman Hawkins' "Body & soul" made #13 on the pop charts. (But they've also missed Kenny G's "Songbird") MG

St Bernadette St Bernard Cujo

Ha, now that's funny ... Just been tinkering in my workshop for a while refurbishing some parts for my old cars with the radio playing in the background... And guess what just came on as a sort of commemoration of a tour George Benson seems to have done here some time ago (can't say I regret missing it)? "Turn Your Love Around"! Holy Mackeral! Sometimes it takes forced exposure like that to bring certain impressions back into mind. If this is all that's the result of those "developed skills" and "sophistication" of studio productions that occurred way after the 50s then "sophistication" in this musical genre just equals nothing but overproduction. Not much progress I can see there unless you want sophistication for sophistication's sake without any regard for honest, personal substance. Fine musical production values, that! Any 50s Johnny Ace or Jesse Belvin tune (both vocal and instrumental-wise) has more handmade, down-to-earth, straightforward musical qualitites than this interchangeable Commodores soundalike! But maybe turning out something with the more simplistic equipment of the 50s that despite these alleged limitations in musical craftsmanship has stood the test of time has become a lost art ever since production technicalities engineered by some whiz kids have won out in the studios?? You know I agree with you Steve, but you're putting too much on this. More than any other kind of music, black pop music reflects changes in its society. The people at whom that music was aimed - and to a very large extent the people who created that music - weren't the same kind of people in the late seventies as in the late forties and early fifties. Pretty well everyone knows roughly what was going on in black society in the interim. So it's clear that the music's GOT to be very different. Yes, and that may (well, does) mean over-produced, because generally improved living standards and better quality housing and etc out in the suburbs actually led people to that kind of demand. And it's no good saying something like, "I wish they'd all stayed in the ghetto and continued to make proper R&B records". MG

Yes, decent tune, tight band, totally burnin' guitar, but to what avail? For me, he's playing his ass off but there's no impact to it. I've got the "Breezin'" LP, from which that tune comes, and it has always seemed to me that the one track with real impact was "This masquerade". There's more to this than playing. MG