The Written Word
for June 18, 2000

I love music and my tastes are eclectic to say the least. I grew up in the swing era and the bebop beginnings and to this day love to put on Glen Miller or, perhaps, one of the old Jazz At The Philharmonic CDs that have been so brilliantly remastered. I also very much enjoy but know too little about Classical music and am especially fond of Tchakowski, Greig and Dvorak. The problem I had was during the early rock days which came upon me in my early twenties. Actually, the predecessor to rock, called “Race” was well within my time and was epitomized by such artists as Louis Jordan and Wynonie Harris. Though I have come to like them since, and latterly respect their talents, I just didn’t dig Elvis, The Big Bopper, Jerry Lee Lewis and the rest of the electric guitar freaks. It seemed to me to just be a lot of bluddy noise. And this was the music of my children and aren’t parents supposed to hate their children’s music? Mine detested my era, especially the fads like Frankie Laine (who was, in toto, much more than that, Johnny Ray and co.)

During the 60s, 70s and to some extent the 80s I needed something to listen to and although singers like Tom Jones and Englebert Humperdink were eminently listenable – so was Cyndy Lauper for that matter -  and Nat “King” Cole was still there I always felt the need to relate to something that was new yet not a load of what I thought was noisy rubbish.

The Poppy Family – Terry and Susan Jacks - filled the bill for me because they were singing about contemporary issues (six months in jail, for just smokin’ pot) and were clearly good musicians. Much more popular, of course, and great favourites of mine were Simon and Garfunkle and to this day I will stop what I’m doing to hear Bridge Over Troubled Water from start to finish, a daunting task if you’re busy. Manhattan Transfer did it for me too and for some reason, though they weren’t particularly good musicians like the Beatles, so did the Everly Brothers.

I really liked the Mommas and the Poppas and Crique Alley remains a great favour as does, of course, Mama Cass singing Dream A Little Dream Of Me.

I have always been partial to singing groups and I suppose my all-time favourites, whom I saw several times in the flesh, were the Mills Brothers who continued to be popular until death broke them up in the eighties.

You might think, since I loved Jo Stafford, June Christie, Helen O’Connell and, most especially Ella (like Louis, Sarah, Miles and Oscar, no surname is necessary) but the woman who saved the musical lives of so many, Barbra Streisand did and does nothing for me. She shouts.

I mentioned King Cole – unquestionably the greatest popular music performer of the 20^th century. Others could sing, some could play, a few could be counted upon to break new ground. Cole did all of that and more. An all-star jazz pianist from whose musical loins George Shearing obviously sprang, Nat neatly survived and indeed made sound good, the commercial crap. I once asked Frankie Laine – a hell of a jazz performer himself until they got him doing country shit – who was the biggest influence on his life and wasn’t surprised to hear him say Nat “King” Cole. 35 years after his death he sells 10 million records a year!

But back to surviving rock, which got harder and harder – a double entendre, intentionally – the 80s and 90s were pretty tough. Were it not for Abba. Simply fantastic and in my car’s 12 CD holder there is always one Abba and one King Cole.

It’s funny though – some of the music I hated came onto me later in life. In retrospect, I like Ricky Nelson, especially Mary-Lou and have become quite fond of the Beatles. I saw the musicale Buddy in London and thoroughly enjoyed it.

I guess it boils down to this for all generations – the music in the “Easy Listening” bin is that which your parents told you’d go to hell in a handcart for listening to.

Seeing Elvis there is proof positive of that for me.