Celluloid can only fade, never age

Last night had a bit of a retro television evening.  After a good day recording, finishing the vocals on two tracks I sat down after dinner only to see a reminder that Taxi was about to start (this reminder I set about three weeks ago but last night was the first time I actually caught it!).

Bob James’ theme and the footage of the taxi crossing the river in New York still manages to evoke strong memories for me.  It was an early episode, with Danny DeVito, Jeff Conaway, Tony Danza and Marilu Henner – no Christopher (Jim) Lloyd yet.  Nice episode, so sad about Jeff Conaway (best know for playing Kenickie in Grease; he passed in 2011 at a relatively young age).

Following Taxi was the pilot episode of Dallas, the original series.  We had literally been talking about it the night before; I was saying how the series developed and changed from the early episodes, which are actually quite bleak and more ‘gritty’.  I was struck by how young the actors all looked, Larry Hagman, Patrick Duffy, etc.,but this was 1978, thirty-five years ago! 

It has always been of interest to me; how film, celluloid, preserves age, it is like an elixir, it never ages.  I wrote a song about it years ago, Never Age.  With all the classic television stations and the reruns from years ago, new younger audiences are seeing these actors for the first time.

A few weeks ago I caught an early episode of Carla Lane’s The Liver Girls, and was struck with just how pretty Nerys Hughes is in the programme, (and how short the skirts were!), but of course this was over forty years ago and Nerys is now in her seventies.

Celluloid can only fade, never age.

Never Age

I watched a movie today

I've seen it before

Once or twice or .......

It was made many years ago

The picture had faded

The songs had aged

But they say it's a classic

for its day

It's strange to have your childhood

Saved for eternity

Recorded on celluloid

There's no privacy

Anyone can see

I can read about myself

In the papers

See myself on tv

The star

who used to be me

The lines on my face

Don't show on the movie screen

Lighting

Makeup

And time

Time has really been kind to me

Celluloid only fades

It can never age

Through my early youth

Through the years turning grey

I've tried to hide my age

But my youth wouldn't stay

Now

At least I can recapture

My childhood days

Through reruns and video

I will live forever

Through those reruns

And stay the same

Never age

Celluloid only fades

It can never age

Horse meat, lasagna and restaurants

The news about horse meat being found in food is disgraceful and criminal but what's next? Food from other countries must be suspect. It is known that in certain countries they eat cats or dogs. Those sweet and sour chicken balls from Thailand could be ......

There have always been stories about local Chinese takeaways behind raided and a dog or a cat being found in the freezer hence the photo!

It reminds me of one of the very first short stories I wrote. It was called Binny's, about a restaurant called L. A. Binnac. The restaurant, in a big city,was famous for its food, which it turns out is linked to the disappearance of homeless people - turn the name L A Binnac around and you've got - cannibal!

The end of Findus? Did they know? Time will tell.

A great case for buying local and fresh!

Internet radio and the future

I hate to admit it but I’m a bit of a gadget guy; perhaps it was The Man From Uncle as a kid or of course James Bond.

I love things that seem to contradict themselves.  I am sat in the sitting room of my home which was originally built we think in the late 1700’s.  The house has a well inside it, which was obviously outside at one time, and when the house was added on to years and years ago I guess someone in their wisdom decided to build the extension, the living room, around the well.  It is encased but you can see the clear water about twenty feet below.

My new gadget is an internet radio.  You tune it into any online station, you don’t need a computer, just a wifi.  I listen to a couple of online stations, LA’s KCRW, Nashville’s WSM, NBRN FM, and I find it slightly wonderful if that’s the right word, to be sitting here in this old room with its beams and old fireplace, listening to a radio station from six thousand miles away through a portable wifi radio.

I really believe that internet radio is the future, especially for music.  The online stations are not restricted to tight playlists with a two hour rotation!  It is impossible for a new artist to really get airplay on local commercial over the air stations, which are now nearly all owned by large companies and programmed from London or LA or New York.  With only a few exceptions, the presenters have no say in what they play, they sit in front of a computer, and read from the monitor.

Personality or well known disc jockeys like Bob Harris are different of course but with everyone sending their latest release to him well unless the BBC give him his own twenty-four hour station, he could never get to play them all.

Small online stations are different though.  They welcome new material, new artists.  College radio in the States was always a great way to break a new act, and still can be.  R.E.M. are just one band who broke through college radio.

As wifi becomes more and more available in major cities then I can see car manufacturers installing internet radio into the car – many already have Sirius of course.  This means though that you can tune your car radio to your favourite online station and listen to it in the car.  This could mean the end of ‘local’ commercial stations.

I have always wondered how American towns and cities can support so many local radio and television stations and yet in the UK it’s thought that in most areas, outside the bigger cities, one commercial station is sufficient?  In Kent we have Heart, owned and run by Heart in London.  There’s KMFM, (owned by the local newspaper group), which was supposed to be for small towns but have now joined together to make one big station, and finally there’s BBC Radio Kent.  Have I missed one?  I don’t think so.

I hope that online radio stations signify a resurgence in new music being heard, an outlet for new acts, like pirate radio did in the sixties.

The Bluebird, In The Round and songwriting

Gifted and acclaimed singer songwriter Benny Gallagher posted a picture on Facebook the other day promoting a concert by four accomplished songwriters from Nashville’s famous Bluebird Café.  They are taking their show, In The Round, on the road.

Not only is Benny a genuinely lovely guy, he is a hugely talented songwriter; his songs include When I’m Dead and Gone, A Heart in New York and Breakaway, and with his musical partner Graham Lyle, Gallagher and Lyle tremendous success with Heart on My Sleeve and I Wanna Stay With You.  Benny and Graham were actually signed by no less than the Beatles as songwriters for Apple’s artists including Mary Hopkin!  Breakaway and Love on the Airways are outstanding albums but my favourite is actually an early one, Willie and the Lapdog, followed closely by The Last Cowboy.  I first briefly met Benny at the old Post House hotel in Cardiff in the 70′s after their show at the Capital, when AFL took me to meet up with them afterwards, (he was on the same label, A & M).  

Anyway, I digress; Benny was remembering writing with one of the four songwriters, J Fred Knobloch and what struck me was the calibre of the four writers individually.

The Bluebird Café is famous for where Garth Brooks got discovered, and apparently someone called Taylor Swift…., plus others.  It’s a very small intimate venue, capacity around a hundred and most shows are ‘In The Round’, where the three or four songwriters sit in a circle and take it in turns to play one of their songs.  In the Bluebird’s case, these are often million selling songs.  The In The Round format has often been copied, in Nashville and indeed around the world but it only ever really works if you have great songwriters who have interesting tales to tell, stories behind the hit songs.  The songwriters don’t even have to be the best singers, often they’re not, but they can tell you why they wrote that particular song that features in the soundtrack of your life; they know why they wrote it.

A few years ago I talked with the owner of the Bluebird, Amy Kurkland, about bringing over some songwriters to the UK, using the In The Round format.  She liked the idea, and was very agreeable to it.  The songwriters I met with at that time included Chas Sandford (Missing You), Jamie Houston (High School Musical, Santana, Disney), James Dean Hicks, Jamie Kyle (who wrote one of my all times favourite songs, Heart’s Stranded) and Kim Carnes and her husband, Dave Ellingson.  Kim is of course best known for Bette Davis Eyes, but ironically she didn’t write that.  Her own songs though for me are much better, my favourite being The Best of You.

Recession though hit and the plans were shelved.  Also of interest though is that Amy told me that the Bluebird recorded every single show since it first opened, twenty something years ago.  Given the calibre of the songwriters who have played there, and especially the special guests, well, that is quite some library of shows and I hope one day someone takes the time, as she asked me to do, and go through the tapes and releases the best of them.  It will be some undertaking.

Many songwriters in Nashville have a way of writing.  It’s like a formula – certain chord progressions, play on word lyrics, but it obviously works, country is the most successful genre of music in the US.

After one breakfast meeting we’d arrange at Fido’s (great Huevos Rancheros) with Jamie, Chas and James, Jamie was off to record Billy Ray Cyrus but the other two had arranged a song-writing session and that’s how most songs in Nashville are written.  Two or three writers will arrange to meet up, in someone’s house, or a rehearsal studio, sit down and just start playing, in the hope that a song emerges.  Often one of them might have a line or two and start from there. 

I have to admit I can’t write this way.  I can’t force myself to write.  Months have gone by and I haven’t written but I’ve never worried.  They’ll come when they’re ready. 

So, if you’re ever in Nashville try to catch an In The Round show at The Bluebird, (which is now run by the Nashville Songwriter’s Association International  – the other night they had Willie Nelson and Kris Kristofferson perform!), or perhaps catch one of their shows on the road.  Another show in a similar vein to watch out for is the Wine, Women and Song trio of Gretchen Peters, Matraca Berg and Suzy Bogguss, again, all outstanding, successful and accomplished writers.

Apart from continuously playing live, Benny also runs songwriting workshops, incredibly valuable for any songwriter. http://www.bennygallagher.com.

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Playing in a band

It hit me hard yesterday – how much I miss having and playing with a band!

With the recent recordings I’ve played all the instruments, usually starting with an acoustic guitar or piano and going on from there, adding more guitars or piano/keyboards, strings, and individual instruments for a particular track – dobro for Country Tales, harmonica, banjo etc.

As we record the song’s arrangement develops.  Tim Palmer, my wonderful co-pilot who engineers everything, gives me the space to try things, ideas that are in my head.  Four out of five times they don’t work but when that one does ……..  It’s great to have Tim to bounce ideas off and being a musician himself too he has valuable input.

What I miss though is bouncing off a group of musicians, musicians who are far better at playing their instrument than I am, and sitting together in a room, in various studios, in a field (we used to practice our harmonies in a field just outside Cardiff), or harmonies on a beach in Santa Barbara, (there have also been some not quite so nice rehearsal places, one in LA comes straight to mind, but that’s another story!).

I’ve always said that I’ve been blessed with playing with top musicians, right from the first band I played in when I was thirteen or so in Cardiff, with an outstanding guitarist, Ian Devine, who played with Ludus, and also Stratton and Devine.  I’ve mentioned Ian before and hopefully he’s going to play on a track for one of the albums this year.

Another fine guitarist I played with in a later banc was, and is, Tony Crooks, so emotional, so talented.  Tony played with Leo Lyons of Ten Years After in a band called Kick who released a couple of albums, (Leo of course was used to playing with a certain Alvin Lee……. enough said). Tony is about to launch a solo career after being in a successful UK band.

The last band I really had included Marty Grebb, who was Bonnie Raiit’s saxophonist and keyboardist; Chet McCracken from the Doobie Brothers and Chris Pinnick on guitar from the band Chicago.  We recorded at Danny Hutton’s studio in Trancas canyon in Malibu (Danny was of course the driving force in Three Dog Night, and he sang harmonies with me). 

This was quite a few years ago, it’s been that long but you’ve got to up your game with players like that.

I wish I was a better guitarist or piano player but when I pick up a guitar or sit at a piano, I usually start writing, not practising.  Being proficient on an instrument though means you can hear, and add, more elaborate parts, play a riff better or of course provide a breath-taking solo, all of which adds to the finished track.

There's also of course the magic of playing with a band that really clicks .......

It opens up though the debate about songwriting and who does what in the band and gets what royalty.  Spandau Ballet appeared in court a year or so ago, three of the members sued Gary Kemp for a share of the songwriting royalties.  Songwriting is where the real money is.  Kemp won, and deserved to. 

For me, the person who turns up at the rehearsal, and sits down and plays the basic chords with the lyrics and melody is the songwriter.  The rest is arrangement.  Should George Martin have received songwriting credits?

Many bands now make an agreement to share royalties, Duran Duran for example.  Le Bon usually writes the lyrics and various other members have written the music for their different songs but all the songs are credited simply to the band.  Lennon and McCartney of course used to credit each other, regardless of who actually wrote the song.  In later years of course they hardly wrote together but the agreement stood, (Lennon often spoke about getting credit for Yesterday for example and admitted he hadn’t written a single note or word of it, it was all McCartney’s song).

It is one of the main causes of discontent in a band – one member, the songwriter, is able to buy the mansion, buy the classic cars, the others struggle – East 17 are a perfect example of this, with songwriter Tony Mortimer still enjoying the financial rewards of writing songs like Stay Another Day whilst the others are broke.

So, I’m going to be looking for musicians.  In Nashville of course you’re spoilt for choice with some of the best musicians in the world being based there, so it’s exciting and nervy at the same time but I can’t wait.

Send in your vocals today and join our backing vocalists

So ………….. I had this idea!

I’m always having ideas.  They always seem straightforward, simple and logical – until that is I speak to someone who knows what they are talking about!  When I had the theatre it became a running joke.  I’d say “I’ve had an idea,” and everyone would disappear! I would try and sell these ideas as two-minute jobs.  They of course in reality took a lot longer but they do work – usually.

So the most recent idea I’ve had was two weeks ago when I started thinking about a duet for the new album and the possibly logistics of recording the female vocalist.     It’s common knowledge these days that the two singers don’t even meet; they can record their vocals thousands of miles apart.  They then send their vocal as an attachment or through Dropbox to the producer, who then mixes the two vocals together.

Tim Palmer and I are finishing recording my Country Tales and Hobo Trails album, putting on the vocals, and the idea came  – why not get people to provide the backing vocals to the chorus of the title track.  Could we make this work?

I spoke with Tim and told him the idea.  I thought that if Tim, as a great engineer, couldn’t do it, it couldn’t be done – but it seemed so simple!

Tim edited two lines from the track, the chorus ‘hook’ line, with scratch vocals.  I uploaded it to Soundcloud, nice and easy for everyone to download from.

We provided a link to the clip on Soundcloud through the media and the websites etc., and just told people to record themselves singing along with the two lines, either in harmony or the same as it’s sung on the track.  They can record it easily on most mobiles as a voice memo and send the recording as an mp3 as an email direct from the phone – easy!

Those more technically minded can download the clip on to Garageband, Logic, Cubase or any music software, record themselves singing with it and again send it back to us as a mp3.

In return for doing this everyone who sends in a copy of them singing the hook will get a name check on the album. All clips sent in will be used.

Once we get them all back Wizard Tim will sprinkle is magic dust, mix them all and then add them to the song.  A truly international choir.

No, there is no charge or fee for this.

If you haven’t done it yet, why not do so?  Amateur, professional, whatever, just for fun, and of course it’s completely free, there’s no charge or anything. 

No, there are no royalties, no rights, ownership, claims, nothing, this is purely for fun – and no, we won’t use the recordings sent in in any other way but by sending them in you do consent in full for us to use them of course!

And it seems to be working so far but let’s get as many people from as many countries as possible.

The link to the Soundcloud clip is: https://soundcloud.com/jon-johanson/country-tales-chorus-ensemble.

The email address to send your recording is: countrytales@outlook.com.

The deadline is January 31 so get recording!  Tim and I are looing forward to getting your recordings – and who knows, maybe we’ll find the female vocalist for the duet as well!

Winter and Guy Fawkes; Recording; a poem

Winter has arrived; snow in the west of England, it is now so much colder.  As a kid it was always bonfire night that seemed to be the turning point from autumn into winter.  Standing around watching the Guy go down in flames, bobbing apples and games.  I do remember taking a guy in a homemade 'buggy' down to Wellfield Road with friends; "Penny for the guy", the money going towards fireworks.

My American friends don't know about Guy Fawkes night, the attempted blowing up of the Houses of Parliament.  It is strange to see though this year just how much the Brits have now taken to Halloween, not at all promoted by shops and companies for financial gain!  Up until a few years ago it went by unmentioned almost.

The change from Fall into Winter is one of the most beautiful times of the year but also always brings colds, coughs and the flu.  We turn the heating on for the first time and light the log burner.  I've been suffering from a cold, and now cough, the timing could not be worse as am supposed to be recording vocals this week!

Probably not going to happen so finalizing last drafts of the two Christmas short stories this week.

Watched Tom Selleck in Thin Ice yesterday, another in the series of TV movies based on Robert Parker's fine books featuring police chief Jesse Stone.  Selleck acts as producer, even story writer and stars as Stone.  The films are always atmospheric, quite Scandinavian in their production and an influence for me on Jackson Woods, as are the Wallander books and television series (not Branagh's version, solely produced to sell to America, as they don't like subtitles!).

So have revisited Jackson, yet again, getting closer to finding him.

Deadlines are changing; Country Tales put back to early January, only because it was thought that January would be the best time to release an album, and not immediately before Christmas.  Today was Tomorrow Yesterday still set for February release.  I'm really pleased too with Songs From a Trailer Park, which comprises of demos and other takes, all recorded on my iPad with Garageband.  Springsteen's Nebraska was recorded on an old four track cassette recorder and I love the honesty and feel of that album, very personal, and that's what I hope for Songs.

Tomorrow is election day in the US.  The race is apparently too close to call. I think Obama may just grab it at the end, but I don't think anyone knows.

Finally, here's a new poem, hope you like it.

Dreamers

Sunday afternoon

drummers

dreamers

Cheaters 

play

hide

behind Halloween masks

But the truth can not be hidden

Once it is already known

by a heart

by a love

the betrayal remains

always

denied perhaps

but not hidden

dreamers

flee into their worst nightmare

Sacrifices

of the heart

Run off

to a foreign isle

But will the leaving

prove too hard

But it is better than being alone

Isn't it?

but the price to pay

is high

Sacrifice of pride

As he has no tomorrow

Yesterday's singer 

tries to keep his past alive

A troubadour

once stole his music

Stole his dreams

Fireworks

light up the sky

light up the lie

Quickly

going nowhere

No further forward

in his life

Dangerous believer

of his own faith

The last religion

he could find

Once you've lost trust

Only a fool says they believe

They won't

or can't

admit the truth

It's the lies

they prefer to see

They are easier to see

easier on the heart

Betrayal

is the deepest pain

Stabbed

Inflicted 

by lust

desire

selfishness

and greed

Leaves yet another scar

one

that never really heals

The strong

continue to

prey

on the hearts 

of the weak

of the dreamers

Jon x