The Magnificent Goldberg

"Little darlin'" was so completely naff it was lovable. I always imagined the bass singer kneeling at the feet of some lovely young thing (in a white DJ, ruffle fronted shirt etc, as you describe), one hand on his heart, the other stretched out to her, singing in that ridiculously straight voice, as if he's making a speech, "My darling...." etc. Wonderful. But terrible. MG

Z T Harold Z Jay Zee

Sugar Ray Robinson Ray Ellington Spike Milligan

Milton Banana Edison Machado Airto Moreira R2D2 C3PO Marvin

Saving my pennies then. I have 19 of these cuts on a cheapo CD I bought last year. Woooooo! Some stuff! Also want the Wilson Heps - but maybe this first; once I get all that Billie Holday stuff, I might die. And a Hamp Decca set would be great, too. On R&B, different bands contributed different things to R&B - it ain't one monolithic music. And what Hamp's band contributed was Illinois and Arnett and the HONKERS!!!!!!!! And what would R&B have been without a honking sax, I ask you! Oho, and the Decca stuff isn't all like that anway. I have a 78 of "Midnight sun"/"3 minutes on 52nd Street" (could you want a more evocative title?) and it's nowhere near R&B. That band had all sorts of different things going on. And so did others. One of the great things I@m discovering as I look more into these swing bands is how varied the fare is, how many irons they had in the fire and how adaptable they were. MG

I remember it. I was about 25 and there were other things much more interesting. MG

Little Richard Little Eva Little Milton

Yes, that's good. My favourite box set package is a set of cassettes of the original radio broadcasts of "The hitchhiker's goide to the galaxy". I got the cassette box in preference to the CD set in 1988, simply because the packaging of the cassettes, and their size, gave a much friendlier feel to the box, very much like the "Guide" is suposed to be. And it has, of course, "Don't panic" on the top, which is useful advice. Of course, it doesn't come with a big booklet - doesn't come with a booklet at all. Cast, credits and broadcast dates are all that there are in the way of notes. Funnily enough, I was listening to some episodes the other day. MG

Wasn't me either. I've got a friend who can write like that - and would about the GG material. I briefly wondered whether it was him. But he hasn't got a computer and doesn't have access to one. MG

I agree with this. My wife and I spent about ten quid ($20) each on our rings. And we still wear them 36 years later. (Well, I can't get mine off. But I wouldn't.) MG

George Chisholm Don Drummond Rico

Lala (http://www.radioafrica.com.au/Discographies/Kenstas_small.jpg) Lola (whatever she wants) Zbigniew Namyslawski

David Frost Peter Cook Millicent Martin

Sir Malcolm Sargeant Malclm McLaren Lewis Hamilton

Johnny Otis Shuggie Otis James Von Streeter

Well, anyone who calls themselves "RizRa The Magnificient!!!" - I've gotta be on their side, haven't I? Ursula Rucker meets Erykah Badu. Thanks Jim, I@m watching. Listening too. Didn't think much of he duet with the guy with the characterless voice. Rest more than OK. MG

Del Shannon David Jason Caaptain of the 'B' Arc

Wasn't the flips side My Blue Heaven? IIRC it also got a lot of airplay. Yes, it was . It was a double-sided hit in the US. I don't know if it was a hit over here. I hadn't started watching the charts at that stage. MG

Well, nobody's perfect; in a thirty-odd year career as a sweet bandleader, the guy MUST have made the occasional error, committed the od lapse of taste MG

Thanks - the sooner Jim gets his links to the retailers back, the better. There are now 4 CDs I want fairly urgently... MG

Not sure about that. It's not bad here but my wife was saying that parts of Barry (just a few miles west of Cardiff) are waist deep. She's gone to Cardiff to pick the kids up from school. Where's the smiley for great trepidation? MG

Ivan the Terrible Basil the Bulgar-slayer Basil Fawlty

Percy Sledge Percy Mayfield Percy (of Northumbria - see Henry IV pt 1)

JG is really nice, i can connect more strongly to it than to The Congregation which (slightly) underwhelmed me as well; i think of the Riversides i have, i like Kerry Dancers and especially Grab this (with organ) better than JG, and the one with French Horn, whose name just escapes me about the same as JG (although it is very different) Didn't know this had been reissued recently. Is it a US or European issue? MG

Not generally albums for me - I grew up at the end of the 78 era. I'm in love again - Fats Domino This was the first Rock & Roll I heard - 1956. I hated pop music in the early fifties - well, it was really the worst period for pop, I think. But when this came along - a friend had it and SANG it to me, first, later I heard it for myself - it made an immediate impact. This was PROPER MUSIC!!!!! Rumble - Link Wray & the Wray Men Last day of school term, someone would bring in a record player and others would bring in records. This was one of them. It wasn't a hit over here, it was more or less unknown. Nowadays, Link is revered as the inventor of the KERRRRAANNNGGGG guitar, for this recording, which was his first. Well, that's all very well, but to have heard this in the summer of '58, without knowing all the subsequent history! I still have the 78 of it. http://www.linkwraylegend.com/ There goes my baby - The Drifters I got my first record player at Christmas 1958. I'd just moved down to London and didn't know anyone - took a while to get into friends because we moved in London 3 times in six months. So I was reliant on the radio for new music. It was in 1959 that the BBC managed to kill off Rock & Roll. By the summer, I'd noticed that there was hardly any real R&R on the radio. So I decided that the way forward was to buy records I thought would be good without having the bother of trying to hear them first. On not very much evidence, I decided that, if I picked material recorded by Atlantic, I'd get good stuff. So I ordered this before it came out and picked it up on the day of release. When I got it home and played it, I didn't know what the FUCK I was listening to! I'd never heard any real Soul music before. I was totally grabbed by Ben E King's voice. But the arrangement, with a choir of double basses (Phil Spector's contribution, I understand) and the song - which didn't rhyme - were as powerful. Three weeks later, I pre-ordered What'd I say - Ray Charles This had almost as big an impact as the Drifters' record - and in particular, it was an indication that it wasn't a one-off; there was a thing going on. From that point on, I was an R&B man. Still am. Now a few albums Good gracious - Lou Donaldson My first encounter with Patton/Green/Dixon. I bought it pretty soon after I started earning enough to afford Blue Notes. It actually took a few months before I realised that this wasn't a lot like Jimmy Smith recordings and so on. I was doing the washing up and GG screamed at me during "The holy ghost". Highlife today - Ambrose Campbell & his Emergent Music I bought this in '67. I liked it a lot. Played it a lot. Eventually, I realised that the musicians weren't making this music for me; that I wasn't REALLY getting it. And it wasn't just because I didn't understand Yoruba. I realised that what I felt about this album applied equally to Otis Redding and Aretha Franklin. So I got rid of the LP and started trying to find out about what was underlying all this music I'd been buying. And eventually, this led me to African history and so on. And led me to Africa. Sen sougnou sama - Ouza ack Njagamarees This is complicated. I got this when it came out in late 1997. I was already a big fan of Ouza - whom I love as much as Grant Green. So this album didn't reveal anything musically new to me. But it contains a song called "Tamboulaye", which is a love song to a terrorist organisation. In Senegal, the Jola (abetted in a minor way by the Mandinke) of the Casamance region - south of The Gambia - had been running a terrorist campaign for about a decade, seeking independence from Senegal. Most of Senegal is Muslim. The Jola are animist: magic; animal sacrifice etc. There is nothing worse in the Muslim handbook of what to hate. But the Jola refuse to convert and have been allowed to retain their traditions. Because the Jola are also heroes to the Senegalese. They did not stop fighting the French colonists until at least the 1940s - and possibly later. They are Anarchists; no authority higher than the village meeting is recognised. But Senegal's government is modeled on that of France and is highly centralised with almost no discretion to local authorities. In 1997 I spent a morning with the head of finance at the town hall of St Louis and was amazed at how little responsibility the council had - and how little money (even considering price differences) was allowed it by the Senegalese Govenment. It is very easy to see how such a centralised Government must chafe at the Jola. But, of course, not even the Senegalese Government is prepared to put up with Anarchism. Hence the terrorist activity in support of separatism. Ouza's song says, "I love you. Don't leave me. I need your roots, I need your flowers, your animals, your traditions." In Britain, we make jokes about how stupid the Irish are. In Northern Ireland, the Protestants make jokes about how stupid the Catholics are. And rant about the IRA. The local councils, many of which elect a majority of Catholics, are (or were; not sure if the law has changed) only responsible for graveyards, parks and playgrounds. No one ever sings them a love song. Is anyone singing a love song to the Middle East? MG