TO WHERE I AM NOW

It was so bright outside today that when I went out for two minutes without my sunglasses, I came back blinded with stars in my eyes. It took me ages to adjust to the archive labyrinth and the studio control room. The real flashing lights on the mixing desk and the various pieces of Star Trek equipment in the control room were actually there in my head and it took me a while to find my sunglasses, because I simply couldn’t see well enough to look for them. It was 68 degrees here in Penzance, you could feel the sun wrapping itself around you like big cosy arms. The sky was so blue that it didn’t look real, it was as if someone had dreamed it up. People were out in the streets and I imagine that the beaches were full, especially as de Pfeffel has announced some easing of the lockdown from July 4th. So many things are opening up, except for the ones that we want, the venues and the swimming pool.

Ed arrived today with his car crammed with drums. Can you imagine the difference in experience for a drummer versus a singer? Especially in the early days of trying to get somewhere and the lug. That poor singer having to carry his poetry book around. Who’d be a double bass player? You sometimes see them on the subway, I guess they never travel in the rush hour. In the live room at the studio there’s a two inch square hole in the ceiling to accommodate double bass players, otherwise they wouldn’t be able to hold the bass upright. Dare soundchecked the drums after Ed had set up, but the start day for recording is tomorrow. You never think about how long it is to the end of an album even though it’s a very long way. When you look back on the process, listen back to what you’ve done, it all seems a very long time ago just in terms of the amount of work. But when you think about The Beatles taking an afternoon to record Please Please Me and Guns ‘n’ Roses taking 14 years to record Chinese Democracy you wonder at the chasm between the two and the different experiences those projects were to each other even though they were essentially the same thing.

I had two sessions today, one with Chris in New Jersey and another with Paul in New Orleans. Progress! The exciting thing about the sessions is that as we work on songs and ideas, singing, getting a body of work together, at the same time we start on the second sessioneer album with Ahad after Jed and Space Summit. There was a time that these were also at this early stage, progress is the key. I’m coming to the conclusion that anybody can do anything they just gotta wanna. I’ve been hitting the French for 20 days in a row and really feel like I learned something and even though I’m busy and feel like I would learn more if I could concentrate more, submerge myself in it, just the act of doing it is so useful and there will be times when I can really take it in. There will always be crazy times when there aren’t enough hours in the day. No time isn’t really an excuse, it’s priorities, even ten minutes a day adds up.

Today, finally, after over a year, I received a vinyl copy of Hanging Out In Heaven. It’s nice, isn’t it? It wasn’t that the label hadn’t sent it, it’s just that I hadn’t got around to having them send it whilst we are here at the archive. I spoke to Jan today who took those amazing pictures all those years ago and told him it was on the way, he was happy. Jan has also taken the picture for the cover of the new MOAT record, Poison Stream. He lives in Stockholm and is one of my oldest friends there. He told me today that he’s had the virus as have many of my friends and musical collaborators in Stockholm. Sweden was the country that followed a different path and there’s some quite scary numbers in the death department. There’s some bad news with flare-ups at the moment as they ease the lockdowns, but the statistic that says Germany 83 million people – 9,000 deaths, UK 66 million people – 42,000 deaths, begs belief.

So I head off into a busy week with the Ahad album, with Dare in the studio recording Ed’s drums and with me playing guide guitars and bass where necessary, some sessions later on at night and fitting that French in somewhere, too. So if you want to ask me a question or are waiting for a reply about anything at all – next week!

Music today comes from the perfect Soul pipes of Aretha Franklin. I Never Loved A Man The Way I Loved You (1967) featured the Otis Redding penned Respect as the opening track which became her signature song and helped catapult the album to the No.2 spot in the US charts. The album also has two Sam Cooke songs on the record, Good Times and Change Is Gonna Come – she was a great interpreter of Soul songs. Although it seemed to set the Soul audience on fire, back in the day the critics were less enthusiastic, Rolling Stone gave it a bad review, time put paid to that opinion. When you consider that this classic and first release on Atlantic Records, I Never Loved A Man The Way I Loved You, was in fact her 10th album, it seems like she took a long time to get going having made 9 albums with Columbia that skirted around the 100s in the charts. Ultimately in her career Franklin had some impressive stats – from Wikipedia: 112 charted singles on Billboard, including 77 Hot 100 entries, 17 top-ten pop singles, 100 R&B entries, and 20 number-one R&B singles.

Her follow up album Aretha Arrives released in the same year (1967) opened with The Stones’ Satisfaction, but it was the single Baby I Love You that made it to No.4 on the US chart and sold a million copies. Franklin would become known as the Queen Of Soul. You gotta have your Soul party hat on to dig these vibey sixties Atlantic records, but she could belt out a ballad too. She released three albums in 1967 alone and then two a year till 1972 with a regular output through the seventies and eighties, this lady was prolific.

It was on Lady Soul (1968) that she sang another song that would be associated exclusively with her, Carole King and Gerry Goffin’s (You Make Me Feel Like) A Natural Woman from an idea suggested by Atlantic’s Jerry Wexler. It was specially written for her and reached No.8 on the US chart. The album also features Curtis Mayfield’s People Get Ready and The Rascals hit Groovin’, written by Felix Cavaliere and Eddie Brigati.

Aretha Now was her second album released in 1968 and that too had songs that she made her own, Think (US No.7) and I Say A Little Prayer. Think was written by Franklin and her first husband, producer-manager Teddy White. I Say A Little Prayer was a Bacharach/David song which was originally a hit for Dionne Warwick, but it wasn’t long before Franklin released it, too, both reaching No.4 in the UK and Top Ten in the US. The album also features another Sam Cooke classic, You Send Me.

Whenever I listen to Soul music, the groove, the singers, the warm skillful easy expertise, I always feel the euphoria of talent and heart.

Song Of The Day is The Guessing Game from the Noctorum album Offer The Light, released in 2006. I wrote the lyrics to this song but Dare sang it as he has more of the Soul voice and that seemed appropriate for today.

 

The Guessing Game

Sometimes when I’m dreaming
All these worlds are spinning ’round
Can’t believe what I’m seeing
Through the clouds down to the ground

Into the distance
Into the darkness

And now that we’ve returned here
To see what we have hatched
Millions of people
A perfect little batch
So that’s what you call England
Sweden and Japan
The Himalayan mountains
Sri Lanka and Siam

Into the distance
Into the darkness
Should we just leave you
What are your chances
Have you the faith
Have you the hunger
All of the madness
All of the wonder
The guessing game

Slipping through my fingers
This tiny galaxy
All these shooting stars
The Men from Mars
And all eternity

Into the distance
Into the darkness
Should we just leave you
What are your chances
Have you the faith
Have you the hunger
All of the madness
All of the wonder
The guessing game
The guessing game

(Willson-Piper / Mason)
Noctorum – Offer The Light (2006)