Weekly Playlist No 19

Welcome to the Cloudland Blue Weekly Playlist No 19...

Sorry this has been temporarily removed to make way for Weekly Playlist No 24 but it will return shortly for streaming - watch this space...

This week's tracklist features Morgaua Quartet, Scott Walker, Tom Waits, The Buggles, The Mothers Of Invention, Laura Pausini, Françoise Hardy, Ry Cooder, Marc Bonilla, Roy Harper, Paul & Paula, The Crystals, The Ronettes, The Kingsmen, The Shangris Las, The Cryin' Shames, The Rocky Horror Show, Marilyn Manson, Ultravox!, Electric Light Orchestra, Kiss, Roxy Music, Deodato, David Essex, Hawkwind, Jorn, Sugar Ray, Brian Eno, Cloudland Blue Quartet (of course!), Paul Buchanan, The Blue Nile and J S Bach...

This week, there are over 30 slices of delight in the usual two hour programme, with rock and, definitely, pop, to the fore...

As ever, it's a varied selection...

No chat (other than the notes below), just the music - hope you enjoy it...

Morgaua Quartet - Larks Tongues in Aspic Pt 1 - 10:00

from "Progressive String Quartet Works"

The opening piece this week was stumbled across last Sunday morning on Youtube.  The Morguau's are a Japanese quartet who, as well as recording the established classics such as Shostakovich, also record their take on the best of progressive rock.  This is their version of the opener from King Crimson's classic 1973 album "Larks' Tongues in Aspic"...

Scott Walker - Big Louise - 3:10

from "Scott 3"

Full of drama, this is Scott Walker at his best, taken from his third album and one of this week's, as usual, probably far too many, acquisitions...

Tom Waits - Ol' 55 - 3:58 

from "Closing Time"

Another purchase last Saturday at the Record Fair, which I attended with chum Count Brodski.  On my birthday the next day, brother-in-law Keith texted me, quoting the lyrics from this song - which comes from TomWaits' pre-growl period - covered of course by then label mates, the Eagles...

The Buggles - I Am A Camera (12” Mix) - 4:54 

from "Adventures In Modern Recording"

The next two songs are two I've always loved.  Firstly, the (shorter than the original version) 12" mix of Buggles' original take on what became "Into the Lens", for me the best track on Yes' 1980 opus "Drama"... 

The Mothers Of Invention - Directly From My Heart To You - 5:17 

from "Weasels Ripped My Flesh"

Classic blues number from The Mothers, one of just four studio recordings on this LP released a year after the break up of the band and featuring some top notch violin from Don "Sugarcane" Harris. This was actually an outtake from the earlier album "Hot Rats".....

Laura Pausini - Io Canto - 4:16

from "Io Canto"

A couple of foreign language items next - firstly, the title track from the top selling Italian album of 2006, spending 8 weeks at number one there (the single itself spent 4 weeks at the top).  It's an album of covers of Italian pop songs which the multi Grammy award-winning and over 70 million album selling but virtually unheard of in the UK songstress grew up listening to...

Françoise Hardy - Un Homme Est Mort - 3:16

from "Clair Obscur"

Now 70 years old, Hardy recorded this album in 1999/2000 with a small ensemble.  It harks back to her work in the mid-sixties and formed a wee hole in my extensive Hardy collection, which was able to be filled by this chance finding at the Record Fair...

Ry Cooder - Little Sister - 3:52 

from "Bop Till You Drop"

This album too was picked up at the fair - for just one of your English pounds - a real bargain.  This particular track was a favourite at our parties in St Mary St back in 1980, when I shared a flat with chums Jamie Frain, Gus Bolton and Dave McKee and where I first got together with the Exec Producer.  Happy days indeed....

Marc Bonilla - White Noise - 3:03 

from "EE Ticket"

Took a chance on this one, again for a pound, having heard Mr Bonilla's more recent work as part of the Keith Emerson Group.  In fact, Emerson plays piano on this rocking, shredding track, which may indeed have been the first time the two worked together...

Roy Harper - The Death Of God (radio edit) - 2:59 

from "The Death Of God"

OK, last song before we delve into the world of pure pop.  This comes from an EP Roy Harper recorded back in 2004/05 as a response to the second Gulf War and the part Tony Blair played in falsifying the excuse of the presence of WMDs to justify the invasion of Iraq.  If you get a chance to hear it, the full 13 minute version is better...

Paul & Paula - Hey Paula - 2:29 

from "Capital Gold Sixties Legends"

The Crystals - Da Doo Ron Ron - 2:21 

from "Sugar Sugar"

The Ronettes - Baby I Love You - 2:50

from "Be My Baby"

The Kingsmen - Louie Louie - 2:44 

from "101 Pirate Radio Hits"

The Shangris Las - Leader of the Pack - 2:51 

from "The Best of The Shangris Las"

The Cryin' Shames - Please Stay - 3:15 

from "101 Pirate Radio Hits"

Six in a row and around 17 minutes of some of my favourite early sixties singles.  I'm sure none of these needs any introduction from me.  All top classics.  This week, pre our Italian trip, I was updating my collection of "Now That's What I Called Music" bringing in tracks acquired since my original compiling exercise in 1999 - and all of these were new additions...

The Rocky Horror Show - The Time Warp - 3:19 

from "The Ultimate & Best Of The Rocky Horror Show"

The Exec Producer is not a fan of the Rocky Horror Show.  Of course this is a party standard for DJs all over the country.  A great wee rocker...

Marilyn Manson - Personal Jesus - 4:05 

from "Lest We Forget The Best Of"

Followed by Marilyn Manson covering a classic Depeche Mode number - streets ahead of the Johnny Cash version in my book...

Ultravox - Rockwrok - 3:35

from "The Island Years"

Electric Light Orchestra - Mr Blue Sky - 5:05 

from "Out of the Blue"

Kiss - Love Gun - 3:34 

from "Love Gun"

Roxy Music - Street Life - 3:25 

from "Stranded"

Deodato - Also Sprach Zarathustra - 3:34 

from "Prelude"

David Essex - Rock On - 3:25 

from "Rock On"

Hawkwind - Silver Machine - 4:41 

from "Parallel Universe"

Another seven hits (or kind of hits), this time from the seventies and all again taken from, this time, the original of my collection of "Now That's What I Called Music".  I've still to trawl through the charts for these years to see what additions can now be made.  This is how I waste my time...

Jorn - Stand Up And Shout - 3:23 

from "Dio"

For me, Ronnie James Dio was the archetypal rock vocalist and it was a sad day when he finally succumbed to stomach cancer four years ago today (May 10).  Scandinavian Jorn stood in for him with his erstwhile Black Sabbath colleagues, performing as Heaven and Hell and this track, from his tribute album of covers, shows how Jorn quite effectively impersonates the wee man - let's rock!

Sugar Ray - Spinning Away - 4:24 

from "The Beach OST"

A scratchy old copy of this soundtrack was acquired on my trip to Glasgow with Dr Prog to see Yes.  I've always coveted it, solely for this cover of an Eno/Cale song from their excellent album "Wrong Way Up".  At just 50p, I was hooked...

Brian Eno - Lux 1 (Edit) - 5:00 

from "Lux"

And here is Mr Eno himself.  An edit from the first of four parts of his piece "Lux", released last year and which, for me, marked a return to his ambient best...

Cloudland Blue Quartet - The Foundling - 3:25 

from "Splinterheart"

As usual, I have to include one of my own songs and, this week, I took an early morning listen to my third and second last song based albums.  I chose this song for the involvement on guitar of my nephew Andy Wilson.  Hope you like it...

Paul Buchanan - Mid Air - 2:33 

from "Mid Air"

The beautiful title track from Paul Buchanan's solo album from (already) two years ago.  I was prompted to listen to this and the next track, by The Blue Nile, by reading the band's biography - which shone an interesting light on just why it was they had such huge periods of seeming inactivity between the release each of their their albums...

The Blue Nile - Heatwave - 6:24 

from "A Walk Across The Rooftops"

Probably my favourite track from the Blue Nile's 1983 debut - despite the presence of at least three other classics in "Tinsel Town in the Rain", "Stay" and the sublime "Easter Parde"...

Bach, J S - BWV 971 Italian Concerto F-dur : 2. Andante - 4:00 

from "Bach : Klavier Übung II"

This week's closer comes from a CD picked up in a Florence flea market - recorded in the city, not by Laura Pausini but by one Laura Alvini...

Hope you enjoy the podcast and will pop by again next week...