Sunday Morning Coming Down

A couple of months ago, I wrote that I had heard a rumour that my favourite Country star of all time, Kris Kristofferson, was going to play the Legends Slot on the Sunday at Glastonbury.

Although I didn’t say so at the time, I feared for him a little; when I saw him about ten years ago in Bristol, it was just him and an acoustic guitar, and I felt that were he to perform in the same style at Glasto, with no backing band, he would probably be dwarfed by the occasion.

Factor in his memory loss problems, and you can understand where I’m coming from.

His memory loss is interesting, not just because it gives my Dad the opportunity to tell his story about the time he saw Kristofferson play a few years ago, and had to prompt him with one of the lines to “Sunday Morning Coming Down”. (“Someone frying chicken!” he called from the audience, as the Country star faltered).

See, for years, doctors had been telling Kristofferson that his increasingly debilitating memory loss was due to either Alzheimer’s or to dementia brought on by blows to the head from the boxing, football and rugby of youth.

Then, in 2016, a doctor decided to test Kristofferson for Lyme disease; it came back positive. His wife believes he picked it up from a tick as he crawled around the forest floor in Vermont making a movie.  He gave up his Alzheimer’s and depression pills and went through three weeks of Lyme-disease treatment and now is, well, he may not be perfectly healthy, but his memory is as good as any 80 year old has the right to expect it to be.

As it turned out, the rumours I had heard were incorrect; he is playing Glastonbury but not the Sunday Legend slot. Instead, he’s appearing on the Pyramid Stage on Friday afternoon, right after First Aid Kit. It’s a good slot for a Country star to play: I saw Willie Nelson play at pretty much the same time back in 2010 and he was incredible.

In case you’re interested, The Sunday Legend slot at Glastonbury this year is being filled by Chic (and for that matter, Barry Gibb is on right before them). That, weather permitting, is going to be one heck of a party.

Anyway, back to Kristofferson. Here’s a couple of tracks from a favourite KK album of mine, 1971’s “The Silver Tongued Devil & I”; one I would think you will all know, and one which, much to the delight of some of my regular readers, includes a gravel-voiced spoken word intro:

Kris Kristofferson – The Pilgrim Chapter 33

Kris Kristofferson – Loving Her Was Easier (Than Anything I’ll Ever Do Again)

Oh, and Happy Father’s Day to this old chap:

 

Like father, like son(s).

More soon.

A Mix-Tape Maker’s Best Friend #1: “Strum + Drum”

Compilation albums seem to be cropping up all over the place at the moment; over at Bagging Area yesterday, Swiss Adam posted three great ones released by Creation, and readers of the Comments section here may have noticed that Martin (who I assume is the same Martin who writes the New Amusements blog – if it isn’t enjoy the free plug anyway!) popped up last week to offer a suggestion – a correct one, as it turns out – about where the acoustic version of The Wedding Present’s “Give My Love to Kevin” I’d posted first appeared.

Now it looks like Swiss might be making a series out of this, so I’ll not step on his toes (not just yet, anyway, although I will probably return to this once his series has finished to post any that I bought but which didn’t feature over at his place), but I will get in early with a couple of songs from the cassette that Martin correctly identified.

When I was in the upper at sixth form, as I think I’ve probably mentioned before, I used to prepare a new mix-tape to play in the common room if not every night, then every other night, much to the annoyance of my parents who had this strange idea that I’d somehow be better off spending my time doing my homework. So, with limited funds available to me, the occasional purchase of a compilation album was a necessity, even better were I to pick up a free one with the NME or some other music mag.

Such was the case with “Strum + Drum”, a cassette which came free with “Underground” magazine. Released in April 1988, I don’t recall ever buying another copy of the magazine either before or afterwards. So what made me but this copy, I hear you ask? Well, for a start it had The Flatmates, of whom I was, and still am, very fond, on the front cover. Also, and I’m not sure if you’ve been paying attention, but it had a free cassette stuck to the front.

Other than the aforementioned “Give My Love…” it had a few other songs that I loved. Here’s the track listing in full:

The Raw Herbs – She’s A Nurse

This is an absolute “lost” classic, although it did reappear on 2013’s mammoth 4-disc compilation “Scared to Get Happy”, although it was titled “She’s a Nurse But She’s Alright”. If you like that, then I would heartily recommend that you pop over to Brian’s place Linear Tracking Lives! and give your ears a treat by giving The Waltones tracks he posted recently a listen.

Miaow! – Belle Vue

Coincidentally, Brian has also posted some stuff by Miaow recently. It’s at this point that I wonder if whoever was responsible for the design of the Strum + Drum cassette knew what they were doing, for I’ve never seen Miaow written with the exclamation mark anywhere else, but there you go, that’s how it’s credited, so that’s what we’ll call them too.

Anyway, Miaow! sound not unlike early Stereolab on this one, so if that’s your bag, give it a listen.

A few months ago, I mentioned that I wasn’t particularly familiar with The Go-Betweens, and, aware that many of my blogging peers revered them, had asked for some suggestions as to where to start investigating their back catalogue (which they duly provided, thanks to you all by the way). You can probably hear the sound of me slapping my forehead and kicking myself when I realised I’ve had this track in my collection since 1988. Doh!

The Go-Betweens – Karen

And finally:

Alex Chilton – No Sex

In 1988, I had no idea who Alex Chilton was, and was not overly fond of this track. However, when I later learned Chilton had cut his teeth in The Box Tops and, of course, Big Star, being the revisionist sycophant I am, I revisited this and decided it was…only okay. Let’s just say it’s not his finest moment.

Although this does give me the excuse to post what I think is one of his finest moments, this, from 1967:

The Box Tops – The Letter

And it also gives me the chance to post this clip of them performing on “Upbeat” in 1967; I love this clip because Chilton is trying so desperately hard to seem mean and moody but just can’t keep it up, in much the same way that keyboards player John Evans makes no real effort to keep up the pretence that they’re not miming:

Incredible to think that Chilton was just sixteen years old when that was recorded.

More soon.