There can’t be many people who’ve not heard of this song, it’s an all time classic. The Mamas and the Papas released it in 1965 but there have been many cover versions of the song. The version I’m posting here for the desert island collection is by The Beach Boys. I love The Mamas and Papas version, but I like the way The Beach Boys did it better.
“All the leaves are brown, and the sky is grey”… reminds me of home. I don’t dream of California, though I’m sure it’s a beautiful place… but maybe I’ll dream of my desert island instead. I like this version because at around a minute and a half into it there’s a wonderful saxophone solo, that makes it for me, plus The Beach Boys harmony. There can’t be many who don’t have at least one of their songs in their collection… I’ve got tons of ‘em, but I’ll post just this one.
It’s been quite a busy day with all this blogging stuff, but I’m catching up. So now I’m going to sit by the fire and watch the sparks rise up into the night sky, warm my hands round my coffee cup and dream about… not California… but brown leaves and grey skies… home. Autumn is on the way, it would be great to be safe and warm on a desert island, endless sunshine and sand, but I’d still miss going for a walk on a winters day.
This is a wonderful piece of guitar playing, and instrumental played with some real feeling. The song, Ramon’s Blues, is from an album called “Loading Zone”… it was released in 1977 and, if I’m not mistaken, it was Roy Buchanan’s tenth album. This guy could really play.
I’d read a review of the album in Melody Maker, or the NME, whichever, but the guy who wrote the review couldn’t speak highly enough of it, he raved about it. So on the strength of that I went out and bought it, took it home and listened to it… then listened to it again. It’s a fantastic album with some great songs on it but Ramon’s Blues was the one I played over and over.
I have a few Roy Buchanan albums, they’re all good. He had a style all of his own.. his own unique sound that came out of a 1953 Telecaster, he was an incredibly talented guitarist who could play in many styles and he’d been recording since 1957 and was a prolific live performer. I’d have Loading Zone in my desert island collection but if I had to trim it down to one track, this would be it.
It’s an unfortunate thing that he’s no longer around, he died in a police cell in 1988 after being arrested for being intoxicated. The story is a little controversial, he hung himself in his cell… others say it happened differently, either way it’s a sad story but like so many others he had a history of alcohol and substance abuse… which is a shame. But I’m not here to judge the guy, I’ll just judge him on his music.. which is brilliant… and he was a brilliant musician and that’s enough for me.
If you’re into electric blues guitar, have a listen. Look him up on the internet, there are many sites dedicated to him… and so there should be. Sitting by the fire on my beach listening to this… well, I don’t think it gets much better.
Roy Buchanan, incredible talent.
Well, we’re on a roll tonight so I might as well keep posting. I’ve also changed the theme of the blog so it looks slightly different.. maybe I’ll try another theme soon but it’ll have to be one that lets me have a custom header, I like to have the picture of my little shack at the top.
Kenny Wayne Shepherd, awesome guitarist. I first heard of him around the time that he released the album that this next song is taken from, it will have been 1996/97.. not sure which. I think I saw him on a show on VH1… can’t quite remember, but there was a short interview with him and then they played this song. It’s called “Blue on Black”.. the third track on the album “Trouble Is..”
I wrote it down on piece of paper for future reference and the next time I was in town I went to all the record stores trying to find it. I ended up finding it in the specialist section of the biggest music store there, it took me ages to find it… they had just the one copy left. It’s a very good album.
The thing that struck me most about watching him on the TV that night was how young he was, and how well he played for such a young person. I’ve done a bit of mental arithmatic here, and by my reckoning he was just around twenty years old when he recorded this song… such talent for such a young man… anyway, the album turned out to be a platinum seller and I’m not surprised. There are some great tracks on Trouble Is… but this is, without doubt, my favourite. The guitar playing is second to none.
So, while I’m trying to knock this place back into shape you can have a listen for yourself, you’ll soon pick the words up to sing along. Meanwhile I’ll try out a couple more themes and tidy up the picture of my imaginary desert island home up there, then maybe get a fire crackling away on the beach and chill out with some good music.
Last time it was two weeks, this time it’s two months since I last posted anything. But real life has to come before my imaginary desert island.. and the music collection that goes with it.
During the last few weeks, along with all the other stuff I’ve been doing, my computer suffered a catastrophic failure.. disaster. After trying a new hard drive, new memory, trying to do a clean install of the system, all to no avail, it became apparent that I’d have to go out and buy a new tower. After getting everything back to normal I thought I’d be able to get some stuff posted on here, but it didn’t happen. Other things just got in the way of it so I had to put this on the back burner for a while.. weeks turn to months… and there you have it.
When my system self destructed the thought crossed my mind about how bad that would be if I really were stranded on an island, having all this music to entertain me would be pointless if I had nothing to play it with, if my imaginary laptop frazzled itself. How frustrating would that be?… all this music stored on there and no way of fixing it. Maybe those old wind-up gramophones weren’t such a bad thing, just wind it up and let it play. But then again, I’d have had to make sure I salvaged the huge pile of vinyl records to play on it… no, the laptop stores it all now.. the digital age. We’re spoiled these days.
And so to the music.. and I’m posting two song here because it’s been such a while since I posted anything at all …. and because I feel like it. The first song is from Ravi and the Afro Brazilian Project. I got this as a free download from Calabash music, a great website for world music, there’s a link over there. The song is called ” 21 String Samba”.. and it’s brilliant, just the sort of music for a desert island.. or anywhere else for that matter. Look it up on Calabash, you can listen to more songs there. In the meantime you can have a listen to this and see what you think. I love all this world fusion stuff.
The second song is from Molotov, a Mexican band, and some serious latino music. I got this on some compilation cd that a friend gave to me, the song is called “Voto Latino”. From what I’ve read of Molotov their lyrics can be a little controversial… but their lyrics don’t offend me because I don’t know what the hell they’re singing about… and anyway, this song’s too good to cause offence.
Two songs, perfect for an evening on the beach of a desert island… providing you’re laptop hasn’t fried in the heat or something. Stuck in the middle of nowhere and no music to play?… I shudder at the thought.
