The Magnificent Goldberg

"When played wet"? How can you play a wet record? MG Lenco developped a system to moisten the grooves with a mixture of alcohol water while playing, to dissolve dirt in the grooves. It also works as a lubricant, slightly reducing friction between the stylus and the grooves. It works wonders on some used records, if they're only dirty, not worn. Has much the same effect as record cleaning machines using solvents. But you have to keep using it on the records once it was applied. Here's a pic: Oh, THAT'S what those things are for! I always wondered (idly). Thanks. MG

Hammond Cheese Jimmy Smith Oscar the Grouch

Has this never happened in Oriental societies untouched by the Bible? I have to think that it is a universal trait of mankind, not just the Europeans and the intellectual descendants of Zoroaster. I don't know about oriental societies, but it doesn't appear to have happened in pre-colonial, sub-Saharan Africa. MG

Around Wales MG

Atheism outlives all gods MG

Interesting piece. Haven't read his stuff, but he's obviously influenced some of the people I have read. Did you notice, he remarried at 89+ ? MG

Leo Wright - Soul talk - Vortex orig Buddy Johnson - Go ahead and rock - Roulette orig mono Sam "The Man" Taylor - The bad & the beautiful - MV Prestige blue label reissue mono MG

What what what!!!! Wild Bill Davis, Milt Buckner, Bill Doggett, Doc Bagby, Johnny "Hammond" Smith, Baby Face Willette, Hank Marr, Marlowe Morris, Ram Ramirez and Lou Bennett all started playing organ (and all but Smith were recorded) before JOS recorded (I may have forgotten one or two others). Probably Shirley Scott did too, and in all likelihood, to judge from his style, Mel Rhyne. And if you don't think those guys are grease merchants... MG

STARS the article said. Stars does not mean Mobley, McLean, Shaw etc. MG

Stanley Turrentine - Joyride - BN Teldec Stanley Turrentine - Easy walker - BN UK reissue Stanley Turrentine - Everybody come on out - Fantasy orig - one of my favourite Stanleys from this period MG

E M Forster "Pharos and Pharillon" - a little book of (non-fiction) stories about Alexandria, ancient and modern. It must be twenty years since I read this. Very enjoyable; very dry wit. I didn't get on too well with the Forster novels I've read, but I love his short stories, particularly the Fantasy and Science Fiction stuff. I expect I'll finish this one later today, so I'll be on to his collected short stories, then. MG

The Tailor of Gloucester Squirrel Nutkin Mrs Tiggy-Winkle

Rev Milton Brunson & the Thompson Community Singers - It's gonna rain - Myrrh UK I was talking about this album yesterday on the Blues Forum and dug it out. Noticed (for the first time since 1982!) the title track is heavily influenced by the type of arranging that Fred Wesley used to do for George Clinton. Not a rip-off, but definitely coming from the same place. Jessy Dixon did the arrangements. MG

Wallis Simpson Homer Simpson Homer & Jethro

Actually, I suppose that Jack Wilson's "The Jazz organs", with Genghis Kyle and Henry Cain also on organs, isn't really all that greasy. Though it does have "Lonely Avenue" and "One mint julep" on it, it also has "For Carl" and Alfred Newman's "Street scene" (and what film did that gem come from?). And you wouldn't REALLY expect a whole lotta grease from Wislon, would you? MG

Bo Diddley Elaine Elias Elis Marsalis

No wonder he went to live in Spain. MG

Sheep give rise to the same problem. The sheep population of Wales is enormous and hugely expensive - they're all subsidised like crazy. My solution to the economic development problem in Wales, as well as to the global wrming problem, is to turn each sheep farm into a hunting ground, for types like Dick Cheney, and to compel each sheep farmer to buy at least one circus cannon. Thus, sheep could be fired out over the heads of the hunters at the signal of "PULL!". Politicians viewed this as a joke. MG

The general point about suburbs, since their beginnings in the 1930s, has been their dormitory status. Town planners seem to have this idea that you should section cities off into residential, shopping, factory and office areas. This has always seemed silly to me; chaos has always seemed a better option as far as I could see. So you allow people to build for whatever kind of use they see the need for, wherever they think they see the need. In this framework, town planning becomes more an aesthetic issue than an organisational issue; and this seems to be what Cerritos has gone for. And there's no doubt that aesthetics do influence property prices. Whether it works or not, of course you can't tell unless you live there. MG Well, once upon a time, separating at least industrial uses from residential made a good amount of sense in preserving residential property values and mitigating the negative environmental and health impacts of traditional industry. Well, only insofar as the middle/upper classes and their property values and health were (to some extent) protected. The workers were housed near the pollution. In Britain, I see no signs of this development, I'm afraid. MG

Reggie Kray Ronnie Kray Robert Cray

I'm afraid i don't own 'Young Blues' or the Jimmy Forrest OJC with Young, i assume they're of the greazy sort, right? Yes - I think you need both of those I have a VERY non-greasy organ record: "Hey Jude" by Jimmy Caravan - Vault 9007. Caravan was a member of Captain Beefheart's band. He tries a few greasy jazz tunes like "Mustang", Nat Adderley's "Cyclops" as well as Trane's "Equinox" and a few soul numbers - "Dock of the bay" & "Walk on by". But he really can't do it. It's an amazingly inept album. MG

Yes, she was really nice. And had a very wide emotional range - it's not all "Fine brown frame". MG

Sir Walter Scott John Ireland Britney Spears

Sly Dunbar - Sly, wicked and slick - Virgin's Front Line orig MG

Cliff Richard Little Richard Richard III