Cool breeze, birdsong, hot tea at hand, the Sunday paper in front of my face, my love beside me, the cats purring at our feet, a weary world halted at our door and outside our window, a hint of jasmine and the susurration of bamboo leaves. I don’t know if there’s such a thing as…
Tag: Music
Of The First Water
It’s that time of the year when in my part of the world (at least) most people get a pain in the neck. The head tilts back frequently looking up at the sky but as the song goes, ‘look up in vain, heavy cloud but no rain’. There are a million songs and more written…
A Heady Cocktail
Or the don’t-try-this-ever-or-you’d-be-dead playlist. The theme for this one hits you smack on the face and what inspired it should be just as obvious – I was listening to a ZZ Top tribute CD released last year and repeats of The Rolling Stones’s ‘Sticky Fingers’. Why, what else were you thinking?
Some Turkish Delight, Anyone?
Our tour of Turkey would not have been complete without my diving in and out of music stores with a few CDs in a triumphant clutch. But our days in that country were so packed that I was a little worried that I might have little of note to show for it. While our decision…
A Strange Playlist
I knocked at the gates of reason, seeking answers The door opened I was knocking from inside Thus spake Jelaluddin Rumi, 13th century mystic and philosopher. These are lines that I’m rather fond of. There usually is a common thread – however tenuous – that runs through the music set that I listen to at…
Burning Some Midnight Oil
I’m rather pleased with myself, which doesn’t happen very often. I managed to keep this blog going with its weekly post for the last 2 weeks despite the temptation of the various delights Turkey has to offer. Cell phone turned off, staying off the internet (except for updating this blog)…aaah! bliss. But now I’m back….
Some Fine Folk
About the time that I wrote Her Name Is Shelagh, I was listening – not surprisingly – to a lot of British folk music. My introduction to that form was through a compilation CD released by Island Records. I was fascinated by much of what I heard, enough for me to build a music collection…
A World Of Music
Our need to categorize, slot everything into a hole, has given rise – among many things – to the blandly named genre of ‘World’ music to fit all music falling outside the realms of modern English music (as if this latter is other-worldly). I don’t care much for that name, but I use it for…
Her Name Is Shelagh
For three decades and a half more, she was as much a creature of myth as she was a creator of music sublime – Shelagh McDonald was. She illuminated the London folk music scene with two brilliant albums, the simply titled debut ‘Album’ and the stellar ‘Stargazer’. And just a few months after the release…
Take It Down A Notch
This was not intended to be the Yin to the Yang of my earlier Out Loud post. Rather, this was ‘inspired’ by my listening to samples of Norah Jones’s upcoming album, ‘Little Broken Hearts’ due for release on May 1st. Her cool, calm voice never fails to send me to a pensive state a la Gandalf…
DyingNote 