If anyone has a spare 40 minutes, this is great – I uploaded it from a reel a few weeks back: the Hartley Band’s first ‘John Peel Sunday Concert’, January 1970 – with fantastic violin from (trumpeter) Henry […]

Spare a thought for the Keef Hartley Band, whose manager ensured they weren’t filmed:

But, Derzo – you’ve always led us to believe the Golden Age was over by around March 1963. What madness is this 1970 business?!?

Watching/listening to Joe at Woodstock is a tightrope experience: you have to steel yourself not to look down, as it were – to really believe that it’s a powerful performance… because the minute you look down, […]

Catfish Blues:

I’ve enjoyed the Director’s Cut & bonus disc of performances in recent months. Rather too much CSNY (album tracks, I think, used in the DC in some sequences of people arriving etc. + the live thing, with […]

Melody Maker’s ‘The Raver’ column in the 60s often had mildly amusing one-liners, e.g. ‘Andrew Oldham’s image would be improved by dropping Phil Spector’s…’ One week in 1967 it informed readers that Cliff Barton […]

I was wrong in assuming that everyone knew Neil Young has cited Bert as an influence for years! (Bert was later invited to play Neil’s charity festival and tour with his (Neil’s) then wife as opening act.)

Mildly tempting. I have the ‘Land of…’ expanded CD and a previous BBC set (which is great). Might be tempted…

Incidentally, there’s a 30 disc box set announced for November 2020 (seriously).

Word just in from Mrs P, Carl: yes, she’d love a copy… 😀

Young.

I recall this unintentionally amusing thing Bert Jansch once said, during a conversation about people who claimed he had influenced them: ‘Who’s that American guy who says it? Neil Diamond? I can’t see it, […]

Indeed! It brought to mind those classic BBC ‘ghost stories for Christmas’ from the 70s.

Yep. I can recommend both the Fowler and Brandreth series too.

Yes. Recommended.

I’m a big fan of ‘golden age’ British crime writing – usually defined as the period between the wars, and stretching into the 50s in some cases. Freeman Wills Crofts is my favourite writer from that period – […]