MUSIC
How Much Do You Love Music?
Surely, it’s the greatest love of all?
Most people say they love music, but I don’t think they all do. Not really. Not love as in the deep visceral emotions great music gives a true music lover.
Some people like a particular sound or a catchy melody. Some think music is just something to dance to. Or, in my dad’s case, they may have a thing about the singer rather than any particular song they recorded— in his case, Tina Turner and Jennifer Rush. He had good taste even if music wasn’t the driving factor.
How is your love of music? Why not test yourself using the following questionnaire set by Scott-Ryan Abt here and also answered by Paul Combs here to see how you do?
Here are the questions with my responses. Music is my number one interest, so much so I even prefer it to football.
That’s true love.
1 What kind of music do you like?
Like? I love music, I think I said that.
I listen to folk music, rock ‘n roll, country, pop, bluegrass, blues, reggae, ska, punk, flamenco, theatre/show music, opera, classical and rock. I used to subscribe to a ‘World Music’ magazine that gave away a free ‘World Music’ CD every month. I loved most of the stuff on that, too, from continents such as Africa, Asia, and Latin America that you don’t get to hear much in England.
I’m not keen on the term World Music for obvious reasons, but it was the magazine's name. Music is of all the world.
If pressed, I’d say my favourite genre of all is the pop-rock genre.
2 What kind of music did you grow up on?
I loved music from my earliest memories. However, my parents didn’t play it or think it was relevant in their lives and neither do my three siblings. I brought music to the home.
I listened to UK radio stations, the off-shore pirate stations, Radio Luxembourg and watch BBC and ITV pop music TV programmes as a young boy. My father would turn them off when he got home from work to watch something else. He just wasn’t into music. Only the sexy singers.
I grew up with The Beatles dominating the airwaves with all the other British bands blowing in on their wake. Of the others, I liked The Stones, Animals, Kinks, The DC5, and Small Faces, to name but a few.
But there was a little more. My grandmother had a piano and stacks of sheet music from UK and US musicals and shows, so I also learned these tunes with her by picking them out on the ol’ Joanna.
(Joanna is Cockney rhyming slang and my nan was a Cockney. Cockneys pronounce piano as pianah).
3 What’s your favourite band?
The Beatles have been my favourite band since 1963 when I was about five years old, although I followed and listened to music before they burst onto the scene. No one has come close to their musical innovation, genius and impact on music culture.
Without Sgt Peppers, Revolver, White Album, and Abbey Road, there would have been no Dark Side Of The Moon, The Wall, Kid, Ziggy Stardust, later Beach Boys albums, much of The Police’s work and just about anything else significant in pop-rock.
I’d argue that popular music has gone backwards in terms of innovation and novelty since The Beatles. Maybe that should be another article.
However, in 1975, a new artist elbowed his way into my musical heart. Bruce Springsteen. Musically, he does nothing that different from any other artist; he just does it multiple times better and several times more passionately.
And his lyrics stand alone as works of poetic art. He has a gift, and his words speak to us.
I have every single recording by both artists who have their corners (my wife says shrines) in our living room.
4 What was the first show you went to on your own?
1972, The Faces at the Rainbow Theatre Finsbury Park, North London. The heyday of Rod Stewart when he still had artistic credibility. Before he chased down disco music and then granny music and made a gigantic fortune.
5 What’s the first record/tape/CD you bought with your own money? And do you still have it?
On vinyl, it was either the Hard Day’s Night or Let It Be albums by The Beatles back in 1969. I have a hunch I bought them both around the same time, but it was long ago. Albums were always my thing.
Of course, I still have them. In the case of Let It Be, I also have the CD box set and the Naked CD version.
6 What is the best show you’ve ever seen? What was the worst?
The best? Bruce Springsteen, The River Tour June 1981 in Wembley Arena London. Astonishing. I’d never seen a show like it and never since. Not only is The River one of my all-time favourite albums, but Springsteen’s energetic, passionate and 1 million voltage 4-hour performance was staggering to the power of a trillion (squared).
I don’t believe anyone can come anywhere close in performance to Springsteen live. Even today.
The worst? A concert last year in my current home city of Valencia, Spain. I was attracted by the adverts that some of Spain’s leading pop & rock musicians would be playing a homage to John Lennon and Elton John at one of Valencia’s premier music venues.
My wife and I paid €40 each to see a show where the musicians hadn’t bothered to rehearse. I guess they thought they knew the songs so appeared to just turn up and try to wing it. It did not work. Obviously.
Many songs were played wrong and, at times, the musicians couldn’t follow each other. And by playing them wrong, I mean the wrong riffs and chords.
The guest ‘singers’ clearly had never played with the ‘band’ before and didn’t know the lyrics and made them up. Some singers couldn’t speak English, so they used a fake gobbledegook to mumble more or less along with the band.
The sound engineers were uninterested and, although the sound was appalling and distorted on the high notes, they spent the ‘gig’ with their feet up. One dozed and the other drank tea while doing social media on his phone.
We (and several British and US friends who were with us) all walked out after 20 minutes. The Spanish audience thought it was fine. I can only guess they’re used to listening to rubbish. And didn’t notice many of the lyrics were sung in Klingon.
7 What is the next show you are going to?
As per question 6, Valencia is not the best place to watch top-level rock and pop music. Luckily for my music health, we’re returning to live in London later this year. I’ve not booked any gigs yet, but I’ll be going to regular top-drawer classical and popular music gigs without fail.
8 What is one band that you still haven’t seen that you want to, before it’s all said and done (for them or you?)
I’ve seen every band I wanted to see. Some many times over. I have a love of music, remember? And I lived in London where everybody comes to play.
I’ll probably go and see Paul Weller for the umpteenth time before he’s said and done. He’s still going strong so there’s plenty of time to catch him a few umpteen times more.
I couldn’t go to see The Beatles as I was too young, and it’s all been said and done long ago. I’ve seen The Cavern Club Beatles in Liverpool and The Bootleg Beatles many times. They were pretty good, and I’d go to another top-class Beatles cover band. It’s all we have.
9 What is the greatest song ever written, hands down?
The question says greatest, not favourite which is a very different thing, especially for a musician. I think Scott meant favourite so my favourite song of all time is a two-way tie between Thunder Road and Hey Jude which neatly straddles my two favourite artists.
If you ask me the greatest song, I’d possibly say Rhapsody on a Theme of Paganini Opus 3 Variation 18 by Rachmaninov today. This is surely one of the most beautiful melodies in musical history, although the title could do with a bit of a rework.
If you were to ask me the greatest song in terms of influence, I’d say Canon in D by Pachelbel. The music sequence Pachelbel wrote is possibly as common in music as songs that use twelve-bar blues. The out-of-copyright melody is used in TV commercials, films, TV series, and ‘borrowed’ by pop musicians everywhere.
10. What is your greatest regret, musically?
My biggest regret is I chose the easy route to earning good money by working for a UK corporation rather than focusing on working hard to become a professional musician.
I knew I could never be a John Lennon or Paul McCartney, so I pushed my guitar playing into a hobby. I now realise in later life, I could have become a less prominent professional musician, such as a session player, and made a career of that.
It would certainly have been much more rewarding (mentally) than marketing telecommunications products although undoubtedly, less well-paid.
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