I want to do a piece, elsewhere, on L.A. Woman and it’s cover versions. Quite a challenge as, outside the obvious 4 or 5 songs, the rest of the album has not attracted much in this field. In particular I am trying to track down the Alexis Korner version of The WASP (Texas Radio and the Big Beat), which he released on his 1975 album, Get Off My Cloud, an all-star old buddies shindig from the look. The nub is that the track ain’t on youtube and I can’t find it “anywhere else”. I would be prepared to buy a copy, long since out of print, but the amazon market place of £732 i find a little off putting. Anyone have long forgotten copies lurking that I could, um, borrow or hire? It’s the sort of thing that erstwhile poster @johnny-concheroo, aka the man who fell to Perth might have, or even, given the Korner interface into jazz and skiffle of ye olden days, @colin-H. (Yes, I know this reads as if I am trying to kill music, but, with the record so long unavailable, it is hardly Mr Korner’s estate I am ripping off.)
Has anyone even heard it? My imagination has him reciting it in his mellifluous tones, hopefully free of any transatlantic twang and hopefully precious little of his crooning, as he couldn’t sing for toffee.
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Moose the Mooche says
Pretty sure my Dad has that album. Unfortunately he is 80 miles away and clueless. If you were willing to wait I could get it to you… in August.
Colin H says
Sorry Retro, I don’t have it.
Colin H says
You’ve just created an image (well, more an alternative universe / a short story) in my mind, where Alexis does a corporate gig for a Highland confectionery and it slips out as a bootleg LP called ‘Live at McCowan’s: Alexis Korner Sings For Toffee’.
fatima Xberg says
You can get the CD for a couple of euros:
https://www.discogs.com/de/Alexis-Korner-Get-Off-My-Cloud/release/7801687
retropath2 says
It says a rather more on discogs to me, even on their german site, but E8.77 + p&p is still way less than £732. (Always a bit cagy with the p&P to be determined by seller after you have clicked, but hey….)
Bought.
Hope it’s worth it but I bet it ain’t.
Colin H says
Maybe that £732 was £7.32 all along…
retropath2 says
Price drop alert!!!
fatima Xberg says
The album is a bit CCS-light, but “WASP” has a nice groove and “Get Off Of My Cloud” actually rocks.
retropath2 says
Are you the seller, Fatima? Go easy on the p&p……
fatima Xberg says
I would never sell a record.
retropath2 says
😉
retropath2 says
Lawks a mercy, I have an abundance, well, one down the tubes, with another one coming from german discogs to make me feel virtuous about the penury dealt to Korner’s great great grandson by the first. (OK and 2nd, but I was too late to pull out, as they say at the clinic.)
retropath2 says
WASP (Texas Radio and the Big Beat)/Alexis Korner: much as I hoped and expected and I am reminded of Peter Sellars version of Hard Days Night. Korner enunciates like an excited Peter Snow on a C4 news scoop. Terrific. In days to come I will put up a youtube of it as it is too good not to share.
fatima Xberg says
German friends of a certain age always reminiscing about Mr. Korner’s television career in the 70s in West Germany: he apparently presented a multi-part series about the blues. In English. On children’s TV.
Mike_H says
Loved Alexis’ BBC radio 1 show from ’77 to ’81. Lots of eclectic blues and soul, string bands etc. always with label and catalogue number details. He was sort of a forerunner for Charlie Gillett’s style of broadcasting.
Moose the Mooche says
Rounder records did very well out of him…!
In my (ahem) “researches” I was hoping that someone had uploaded a load of those shows a la Peel, but apart from one or two specials on guitarists…. nish.
Whenever anybody utters his name I can just hear his wonderful voice saying “Hello….!” immediately followed by this:
JQW says
Reading out the catalogue numbers of new releases was a way that broadcasters could get around the ‘needle-time’ limits imposed by the Musician’s Union at the time. A radio play of a recording together with its catalogue number would be considered a review, and therefore count as an exception from needle-time restrictions. I can recall both Terry Wogan and Jimmy Young doing the same.
Moose the Mooche says
I did not know that! I assumed it was to help you to buy the record – although as I must have known at the time, all you really needed was the name of the record label.
retropath2 says
At last I can present a youtube version of the song in question.
Enjoy, as I had to go to Hull in a handcart to get it. (Or was it the other way round?)
Moose the Mooche says
Worse still, the handcart had a right-angled valve on its tyre. Total mare!
Mike_H says
“Listen to this, I’ll tell you about the handcart.
I’ll tell you about the handcart to Hull.
Listen to this, I’ll tell you about the handcart.
I’ll tell you about the tyre with the right-angled valve…”
Spectacular!
Tiggerlion says
That was a lot better than I was expecting. Nothing like Sellar’s A Hard Days Night, in the style of good old Larry playing Richard III.
Moose the Mooche says
“Now is the winter of discontent made glorious summer by Rockin’ Jimmy and the Brothers of the Night”
retropath2 says
Might sound better with a John Prescott delivery, mind, over either Alexis or Jimbo.
Moose the Mooche says
It would do IF JOHN PRESCOTT WAS FROM HULL OR HAD EVER LIVED HERE.
Sorry, was I shouting then?
retropath2 says
Pardon?
Pardon.
Delete as applicable.
Mike_H says
A fairly early member of Alexis Korner’s Blues Incorporated was tenor saxophonist Art Themen, who I saw perform at Chandos Arms Jazz last Sunday.
He was on Alexis’ 1964 album “Red Hot From Alex” on Transatlantic Records and also on 1965’s “Alexis Korner’s Blues Incorporated” on Decca’s Ace Of Clubs Label.
He’s getting on a bit now (78 years of age), though you definitely wouldn’t think so by how he looks and plays. Since those debut recordings with Alexis, he’s played on albums for Michael Garrick, Jack Bruce, Norma Winstone, Graham Collier, Stan Tracey, Don Weller, Howard Riley, Soft Machine, Alexis again and Pete Brown.
He’s also managed to squeeze in a successful career as an Orthopaedic Surgeon.
retropath2 says
Now Red Hot From Alex actually was/is a quite good Alex album.