I’ve just spend a very pleasant evening down at the pub discussing David Mitchell’s Slade House with some pals. The latest novel from the Cloud Atlas Hitmaker is a horror novel: a playful bagatelle which I enjoyed enormously. A writer at the peak of his powers putting aside thoughts of creating the next great masterpiece and simply having lots of fun. A virtuoso showing what they can do, simply to entertain us.
Other examples of this slightly unbuttoned approach include:
Zappa’s Cruising with Reuben and the Jets
Dylan’s Nashville Skyline
More than a few films starring Hugh Grant
It nnedn’t be a whole film or antire albun. A cameo or guest appearnce one one track will do.
Artistic endeavours that won’t win any Osars of Best of the Year categories. But were a hoot to take part in.
Anyone else got any unbuttoned faves?
Robert Fripp & Toyah Willcox
.
Dizzy Gillespie on The Muppet Show.
Robert Fripp on Mr & Mrs.
It must be a parody or a skit on some show, mustn’t it?
Hang on it a minute. It’s real. It really happened.
Extraordinary.
Really extraordinary. Robert and the rabbit. Who’d have thought it?
Great work Mike! Two classic clips there. The Muppets do have an extraordinary ability to bring out the best in their guests. Feist’s visit was wonderful. The lovely Leslie has never been more charming.
Wow. As in, 😳
My gob was rather smacked when I heard that the I Claudius Hitmaker, Derek Jacobi, would be doing the narration for In the Night Garden, a TV show for toddlers. Did it realy need an actor his calibre to tell us about Uppsy Daisy and Iggle Piggle and their adventures on the Ninky Nonk?
Having watched it many, many times I now think it was a stroke of genius. Any actor could have done that task, but to do it with such flair needed a special talent.
British kids show have a tradition of top notch talent:
Richard Briers, Kenneth Williams, Terry Wogan, Richard Baker, Willie Rushton: it’s a long list.
*cough* Jeremy Irons
I had no idea about Mr Irons’s time at Play Away.
I’m a big fan of the late, great Elis Regina from Brazil. In 1969 she did some gigs in Sweden with Toots Thieleman.and they recorded an album together in a few days.
She’s seldom sounded better. This track isn’t perhaps the best but you can see how much fun they were having together.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4lMEozMLOF0
It seems to have happened for this TV show which was Sweden’s entry for the Golden Rose of Montreux.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FzmaAbjzPko
If you want unbuttoned, you can’t do better than a well-known musician doing a small scale local gig with his pals from the local scene.
Here’s Jerry Garcia with the very talented mandolinist Dave Grisham. There’s a remarkable similarity between the two of them and the Fabulous Furry Freak Brothers-
Unbuttoned Bush?
I’m rather fond of 50 words for snow, the album Ms B recorded directly after rebooting her classic tracks. She found herself on a roll and kept recording.