“And this, I wan’ tell ya, is a Trenchtown experience…all the way from Trenchtown Jamaica, Bob Marley & The Wailers…C’mon”

And with that introduction Bob and his incredible band (the rhythm section of the Barrett brothers Carlton and Aston “Family Man”, keysman Tyrone Downie, Al Anderson on lead guitar, percussionist Alvin “Seeco” Patterson and the I Three’s, Rita Marley, Judy Mowatt and Marcia Griffiths) glide into the most incredible performance of “Trenchtown Rock”. It’s a song and a performance I’ve loved since first hearing it (probably courtesy of my school friend Howard Bramble), particularly because it has a lyric that sums up the way I feel about music and always have. The first thing Bob sings on this record is

“One good thing about music, When it hits you feel no pain

So hit me with music, Hit me with music now”

If that isn’t a great enough start Bob repeats it throughout the song and when he gets towards the end follows up the “Hit me with music” line with what I believe is now known as a mic drop

“Brutalise me with music”

BOOM! If I’m awake there is barely a moment in my life when there isn’t music playing no matter what else I’m doing, my life has to have a soundtrack. Thanx Bob for setting my feelings about music, to music…and to think we never even met.

From then on the crowd are treated to one of the finest performances you’ll ever hear, what it must have been to see this band. “Burnin’ And Lootin’”, “Them Belly Full…”, the sheer exuberance of “Lively Up Yourself”, by the time you get to “No Woman No Cry” you’re thinking like you’ll get a breather but…it’s such an emotionally charged, incredible performance of the song there’s just no let up in the intensity even though things have slowed down. It’s the definitive version of the song, knocking the studio version from “Natty Dread” right outta the park. For those that don’t know the song was written by Bob Marley but he gave a co-writing credit to his friend Vincent Ford who ran a soup kitchen in the Government Yard public housing projects of Trenchtown (“I remember when we used to sit, In the government yard in Trenchtown“). The royalties generated by the song allowed Ford to carry on with the kitchen.

"Live!" is right up there in the top 5 of the greatest live albums, a masterful performance of superb songs by a fearsome group of musicians. All the ingredients you need.

Trenchtown Rock - https://youtu.be/ziQSNGFzlp4?si=EKDFHdg7zw-f6XhY

Marie McDonald McLaughlin Lawrie, aka Lulu, has been a fixture in British pop music for nearly 60 years now. From her beginnings as something of a Soul shouter with her band the Luvvers, through her record companies attempts to turn her into a supper club singer, dalliances with Bowie and a Bee Gee and on to the (best forgotten) Take That years one thing is undeniable, the girl has one helluva set o’ pipes on her, she can sing.

This, her second album, was released in 1967 and in some countries was titled “Lulu Sings To Sir With Love” to cash in on her appearance in the film “To Sir With Love” alongside Sidney Poitier, a film for which she also sang the theme tune. Now, as great as that theme tune is and the fact this album also contains what I regard as one of the great pop singles of the 1960’s, “The Boat That I Row”, neither of those are the reason I own this album. The reason I own “Love Loves To Love Lulu” is for a song that otherwise appeared as the B-side of the US single of “To Sir With Love”, that being Lulu’s version of “Morning Dew”. 

We will talk about “Morning Dew” again in the course of this task I have set myself. It was written by Canadian folk singer Bonnie Dobson around 1962 and via covers by Tim Rose (who rather cheekily asked Dobson if he could re-write some of the lyrics, changed something like 3 words that someone else had written (!) and has received a writing credit on it ever since !) and the Grateful Dead the song has entered into the cannon of songs that keep being covered and covered by almost everyone (I own versions by Lulu, Tim Rose, Episode Six, The Move, Procol Harum and Jeff Beck). 

Of all the different versions I own this one by Lulu is definitely my favourite (run a close second by Episode Six). The song is a conversation between the last man and woman left on Earth after a nuclear holocaust (cheery huh ?). It starts out quietly with an acoustic guitar and what sounds like a xylophone accompanying a subdued Lulu for a couple of verses before the drums and horns kick in and Lulu let’s rip and it turns into quite the groovy dance tune. One day I’ll find a 7” of it that doesn’t have to be imported from the US with the attendant extortionate shipping costs, until then this album will keep me happy.

Morning Dew - https://youtu.be/OA-uoXKSlsc?si=Ow0yH6DyqY40yORI

I’m a fan of all of Love’s first 3 albums (“Love”, “Da Capo” and of course this one). “Forever Changes” is the most consistent of the 3 and is rightly regarded as one of the greatest albums to come out of 60’s America. I’ve said before what a time it must have been in LA in the 60’s when a wander down Sunset Strip may have given you pause to choose between gigs by The Byrds, Buffalo Springfield, Love or The Doors, incredible.

Love were formed in 1965 when multi-instrumentalist Arthur Lee, after attending one of those shows by The Byrds, tasked himself with creating a band that married the folk-rock style being developed by The Byrds to the rhythm and blues he was most used to playing. They began to play around LA and were signed to Elektra Records as their first rock act and had themselves a minor hit in 1966 with a version of Bacharach and David’s “My Little Red Book”. Their 2nd album later in 1966, “Da Capo”, was more experimental. It included the psychedelic rush of “7 and 7 Is” and “Revelation”, a near 19 minute epic that took up all of Side 2.

“Forever Changes” was released in November 1967 by which time Love had shifted to a gentler, folky, much less experimental sound. Tensions arose between Lee and guitarist Bryan MacLean (a former Byrds roadie) over McLean wanting more of his songs included. He only had two songs on “Forever Changes” and as one of them was “Alone Again Or” he probably had a good case. The album was far more popular in the UK than the US, reaching #24 here and only #154 in America. It has, in the ensuing years, been recognised as a milestone in American rock music and has made endless “Best Album Ever…” listings.

It starts in the most gentle manner with a Classical sounding acoustic guitar leading us into the breathy “Alone Again Or” which picks up the pace and by the time it hits the chorus is sounding almost like a Mariachi band, there’s even a trumpet solo. The rest of the album continues in a similar vein, gentle folk influenced songs, but great, great songs, interspersed with Pschy guitars and strange vocal interludes. “Andmoreagain” is a beautifully orchestrated ballad, “The Daily Planet” has something of an R&B back beat to it, “The Red Telephone” has a more psychedelic lyric, finishing on a chant of “They're locking them up today, They're throwing away the key, I wonder who it will be tomorrow, you or me?”

“Forever Changes” is an utterly timeless masterpiece, a fusion of orchestration, intricate arrangements, psychedelia and great songwriting, think of it as being akin to Burt Bacharach on Acid and you won’t be far wrong. Why America didn’t take to it is beyond me as it is an absolutely superb record and every house should have one.

Alone Again Or - https://youtu.be/cPbNpIG8x_s?si=Lms51zg3hrd05Ubh