1001 Albums Summary

I think I heard this once upon a time, but I'm more familiar with his third album, Pink Moon. I'm sure Pink Moon will pop up later. I think I'm going through a bit of a rough patch at the moment, not least because I'm quite ill. I can't see out of my right eye at the moment, and I think I'm getting depressed again. When I'm depressed, the phrase "Black Dog" always jumps into my head, which is what Drake used to refer to his bouts with depression as. As I take my paroxetine every morning, I think of him. There's only so much heavy lifting a little pill can do, when everything else seems to bring you do that much. ────────────────── Nick Drake with full orchestration is kind of magical. That's the first thing I noticed. I'm so used to hearing him with just his acoustic guitar behind him, invariably in some tuning I haven't tried out myself. The strings and the horns work perfectly with his voice, it's like listening to a more mature Van Morrison. It's odd to hear such a young voice with such a fully realised project (Nick Drake was 22 years old when Bryter Layter was released), but it's fantastic to hear something so enrapturing from such an old soul. The flute parts dotted about this album in particular are wonderful - it's almost a call back to the parochial songs that Molly Drake would have raised him on. ────────────────── When I was 22 years old, I had recorded an album called Action Figures, and I had been waiting for years to release it. Mixing takes time, but not as much time as I was expecting. It was 2020, the year everything was covered in a thick film of fear and the stench of alcohol. I was working in a supermarket, I was going running four times a week, I was moving away from the coast to a sad little town in the Midlands. We thought it would save us money, but with nothing to spend money on, we still managed to waste it. I thought it would have happened to me by then, and it still hasn't happened to me now. I was scared of dying, and reticent to download TikTok. Crucially, I was away from everyone I had spent the past four years playing music with, and no venues were open, not even an open mic night. I felt stuck. I am stuck. ────────────────── I wonder who Hazey Jane was. Who inspired these two wonderful songs? Was she real? Did Nick read about her? Was she him? One of my favourite things musicians do is write to themselves, or a part of themselves - epistolaries especially. A card or a letter to a fraction of their brain, awaiting a response. One wonders if Jane ever wrote Nick back. Maybe that's what the rest of the album is. One Of These Things First is a true stand out on this album; it allows his acoustic guitar to shine through everything, even with a truly miraculous piano part going wild in the background. And it's bristling with possibilities. I wish Nick Drake had had the time to be anything he wanted to be. ────────────────── I wish I had found the time. ────────────────── 8/10 Stand Out Tracks One Of These Things First Hazey Jane II Sunday

I think I heard this once upon a time, but I'm more familiar with his third album, Pink Moon. I'm sure Pink Moon will pop up later. I think I'm going through a bit of a rough patch at the moment, not least because I'm quite ill. I can't see out of my right eye at the moment, and I think I'm getting depressed again. When I'm depressed, the phrase "Black Dog" always jumps into my head, which is what Drake used to refer to his bouts with depression as. As I take my paroxetine every morning, I think of him. There's only so much heavy lifting a little pill can do, when everything else seems to bring you do that much. ────────────────── Nick Drake with full orchestration is kind of magical. That's the first thing I noticed. I'm so used to hearing him with just his acoustic guitar behind him, invariably in some tuning I haven't tried out myself. The strings and the horns work perfectly with his voice, it's like listening to a more mature Van Morrison. It's odd to hear such a young voice with such a fully realised project (Nick Drake was 22 years old when Bryter Layter was released), but it's fantastic to hear something so enrapturing from such an old soul. The flute parts dotted about this album in particular are wonderful - it's almost a call back to the parochial songs that Molly Drake would have raised him on. ────────────────── When I was 22 years old, I had recorded an album called Action Figures, and I had been waiting for years to release it. Mixing takes time, but not as much time as I was expecting. It was 2020, the year everything was covered in a thick film of fear and the stench of alcohol. I was working in a supermarket, I was going running four times a week, I was moving away from the coast to a sad little town in the Midlands. We thought it would save us money, but with nothing to spend money on, we still managed to waste it. I thought it would have happened to me by then, and it still hasn't happened to me now. I was scared of dying, and reticent to download TikTok. Crucially, I was away from everyone I had spent the past four years playing music with, and no venues were open, not even an open mic night. I felt stuck. I am stuck. ────────────────── I wonder who Hazey Jane was. Who inspired these two wonderful songs? Was she real? Did Nick read about her? Was she him? One of my favourite things musicians do is write to themselves, or a part of themselves - epistolaries especially. A card or a letter to a fraction of their brain, awaiting a response. One wonders if Jane ever wrote Nick back. Maybe that's what the rest of the album is. One Of These Things First is a true stand out on this album; it allows his acoustic guitar to shine through everything, even with a truly miraculous piano part going wild in the background. And it's bristling with possibilities. I wish Nick Drake had had the time to be anything he wanted to be. ────────────────── I wish I had found the time. ────────────────── 8/10 Stand Out Tracks One Of These Things First Hazey Jane II Sunday

I'd always heard of Simon and Garfunkel. My mother had a copy of one of their Greatest Hits collections in her Mini Cooper, and would play it on long drives. By the time I was 6, I would have heard Scarborough Fair upwards of 100 times. At The Zoo was on a compilation CD bought for her 40th birthday, and I would listen to that CD like it was a religion. It wasn't until my dad turned to me during his habitual viewing of random BBC4 music documentaries and said "I think Simon and Garfunkel might be my favourites.". Dad doesn't have favourites. I immediately bought him a box set of their albums for Christmas, and subsequently ripped the CD's to my MP3 player. That was me, changed forever. ────────────────── Following the dissolution of Simon and Garfunkel's partnership in 1970, Paul Simon took a little time away from recording - taking a teaching position at NYU, and collaborating with Leonard Bernstein on (my favourite) verses on his Mass. In 1972, he returned with a beautiful and personal album. I think about this album about three times a day. One of the melodies or one of his turns of phrase will knock about in my brain. If it's not the slide guitar on Paranoia Blues, it's "Peg, you better look around!" from Run That Body Down. I take so much from this record, that quite frankly I should be sued. ────────────────── Car rides with my Dad changed a lot of after he quit his job and became a counsellor. We were close, and loved each other very much, but he wasn't open. I didn't know a lot about his childhood, I didn't even know he had a brother until his mother passed away. But we were driving through the countryside once, I can't remember where we were going - maybe we were just driving, and we were talking about childhood. This was after he started his psychology training, and I think he must have wanted to know he'd done a good job. I was about 20 at the time, and to his credit, he had, and so had my Mum. One of the things I am most grateful for in my life is that I had a lovely childhood. And in the midst of the talk, he quoted Philip Larkin. This was my dad! A man who loved fixing his cars, and mowing the lawn, and just fixing that last spot of paint so the house would finally be complete. And here he was quoting This Be The Verse in the West Midlands countryside. That was me, changed forever. ────────────────── One thing Paul Simon is very good at is finding the universal in the minute details. He'll make a broad statement, or phrase something in a specific way, and it'll make you feel like you're the only one who's ever experienced what he's talking about. We've all heard a couple in the next room trying to win a prize, but suddenly it's a moment that only you and Paul have ever found yourselves in. It does make you think of that James Baldwin quote about finding out that Dostoyevsky feeling the same thing you did 100 years ago. There are so many tracks on this album I could talk about forever, including his instrumental jam with Stéphane Grappelli on Hobo's Blues, but I think the thing that stands out so much to me is how eclectic this album is. His exploration of other musical cultures preparing us for the worlds of Graceland and The Running of The Saints. ────────────────── My Dad practices as a counsellor, and every Father's Day I make a point to tell him how proud of him I am. It's so lovely to watch him become who he's meant to be as someone who helps people, and not just his three kids and his wife. Last Christmas, he made a point to tell me over lunch that he loved me, he was proud of me, and that raising the three of us was the greatest thing he's ever done. I do wonder if he likes my music, but that's not the point. He's proud of me. He looked at me with the same broken eyes that I have, and I knew he meant it. I cried at lunch. It was delightful. ────────────────── While not as celebrated as some of his later albums, it's a key building block of not just Simon's career, but of folk pop and singer-songwriter music as genres. It's a showcase of a man on his own, and doing his own thing, not restrained by his past - however wonderful it was. It's a keystone in my life, and should be a keystone in yours. It's a beautiful piece of work, and shows how good things were going to go for Paul later on down the line. ────────────────── When I hear Paul Simon's voice, I think about my Dad. ────────────────── 9/10 Stand Out Tracks Run That Body Down Everything Put Together Falls Apart Me and Julio Down By The Schoolyard Paranoia Blues

I'm envious of a lot of people. I'm envious of people who understood things about themselves earlier. I'm envious of people who take to new skills like a duck to water. I'm envious of people who have managed to accomplish amazing things despite the odds being stacked against them, while I have managed to achieve very little with every hand up in the world. ────────────────── Stevie Wonder is one of the greatest writers and musicians of all time. His voice is one of the most recognisable voices in popular music, and he has revolutionised what music could be. All the way through his career, he has been a fountain of creativity and ingenuity. His keyboard playing is instantly recognisable - I can tell Stevie's playing from a 20 paces. His command of the manual is superhuman, and with it, he has crafted some the most enduring music of the 20th century. Songs In The Key Of Life was recorded during a pivotal moment in Wonder's life. After a string of award winning albums, he considered retiring from music entirely, and moving to Ghana to help disabled children. He changed his mind, and instead gave us this masterpiece. ────────────────── A big regret in my life is that as a child I could never practice. I don't know why, maybe I just wanted to play the songs I loved, rather than the songs that would have made me better at the instruments I seem to have devoted my adult life to. It took me too long to learn a scale, and chords seemed to have come to me very late in my guitar career. Malcolm Gladwell's 2008 book Outliers states that it takes 10,000 hours to become world class at something. I am roughly 250,920 hours old, and very little time of that was spent sat running through modes on the piano. I wish it had been now. ────────────────── Songs In The Key of Life was a very delayed project. Stevie Wonder is a perfectionist at heart, and spent hours and hours recording, re-recording, mixing, and remixing. Motown started advertising the album by printing t-shirts with "We're almost finished!" on the front. It's undeniable that it was worth the wait. From the opening vocal harmonies on Love's In Need Of Love Today, to the modal intricacies on Contusion, the vivid imagery of childhood on I Wish, to Sir Duke, whose bassline has troubled many an aspiring funk player. Every single note on this album drips with attention, and everyone who has heard a note of it is better for it. ────────────────── It is bad for me to wish for more time, because I had that time! I used it. And without knowing what I know now, I would have just done what I did with it the last time. A lot of it was serene and unproductive, but a lot of it was deeply personal and I wouldn't be who I was without it. All I have in front of me now is time, and the drive and love to use it to chase what I want. I will practice, I will keep trying, I will book shows, I will keep playing music. I've got nothing else to do but love what I love. ────────────────── I'm willing to bet that 90% of people who have heard Western Popular Music in the last 60 years have heard a song from this album. If it's not Sir Duke, it's the beautifully devoted Isn't She Lovely, and if it isn't that, it's the synth part from Pastime Paradise. This album encroaches on everything, and there is a clear line on music made before Songs In The Key Of Life was released, and music after it. ────────────────── 10/10 Choice Tracks Love's In Need Of Love Today Contusion I Wish Sir Duke Black Man Isn't She Lovely As

I think I probably wanted to be Nick Drake when I was a kid - that mysterious singer who'd gone too soon and left a dearth of work that meant so much to everyone. I loved folk music, always have and always will. But the other side of Nick Drake's coin was Syd Barrett, and soon I was obsessed with Pink Floyd's early experimental work. I do wonder if this would be my downfall, but there are too many men with guitars in DADGAD trying to be Mr. Drake. ────────────────── Nick Drake was 20 years old when he started recording his debut album Five Leaves Left, but he already sounded old beyond his years at this point. At this point in his life, he was studying English Literature at Cambridge University, and disregarding his studies - preferring to experiment with Open Tunings and marijuana. He would skip lectures to get the train up to London and record his album, recorded with his college friend Robert Kirby providing the majority of the beautiful orchestration. After listening to this album again and again, I think his decision to skip lectures was for the best. ────────────────── When I was 20 years old, I started work on my debut album. And I wanted it to sound huge. It was a collection of songs I'd spent the past five years writing and honing with my band. I say this as if it was an ambitious project, and not my desperate attempt to make something of my life and my music degree. It was supposed to be finished by March of 2019, and it just wasn't. There was never the sound I wanted, and that was purely because none of us had worked long enough at it. The instrumentalists were great for the most part, but we hadn't been in the studio long enough - we hadn't learned the tricks of the trade. The multitracking, the way to maximise the use of our spaces. We hadn't come to learn to mix properly. ────────────────── There are so many beautiful cuts on this album, but River Man stands out as a centrepiece. It feels like a play on Stevie Smith's 1950 poem The River God - a personification piece, using the River Mimram as a lecherous God of his domain - killing a bathing woman to keep her next to his river bed. It's also inspired by the German novel Siddartha by Herman Hesse, which in turn was inspired by the teachings of Vedic texts and Buddhism. There's an obvious link between reincarnation and the flowing of the river. In this case, it's almost definitely the River Cam - a river in Cambridge that Nick would cross every day on his way to classes. The river reincarnates. ────────────────── I spent the first four years of adulthood by the Cornish Sea. I wonder if I should have let it influence me more. There's always something in water that draws poets in, gives them something to write about. The flowing nature of running water that shows the changes of the worlds - you eventually see yourself in a body of water. Whether it's the roaring tides, or the gentle running of a stream, the universal need and appreciation of water has given the world some of it's most enduring songs. From shanties, to When The Levee Breaks, to River Man. We find ourselves bathing. ────────────────── 8/10 Choice Tracks: River Man Cello Song The Thoughts of Mary Jane Man In A Shed Saturday Sun