HIGH FIDELITY ..... FIDDLE DE DEE

There was a time when I used to think about sound quality in recordings and spent a silly amount of money on good stereo equipment with good amps, turntables and speakers.

To reproduce the best sound I used to buy vinyl recordings which had to be carefully wiped before playing and stored properly to avoid scratching.

The latest equipment (bought 15 years ago) now sits in a little pile tucked away behind the china cabinet in the lounge - one step away from being relegated to the shed.
The vinyl records are all still in boxes from the move from Auckland to Whangarei in 2009 and are stacked in the shed.

When I listen to music now it is usually through an iPod and a Bose sound dock or via YouTube through the smart TV in the lounge.


Sure the sound might not be as good as from Hi-Fi equipment but hey, my ears aren't what they used to be as my hearing is suspect. Also, the convenience of finding the desired album or track on iPod or from the YouTube menu far outweighs any sound deficiency.

When I'm cooking I like to put the TV on with YouTube and access the musician or genre I want and search using 'mix' as a suffix. I can then get a loop of music from a particular artist or a group of musicians or artists in the same or similar genre. For example - I like jazz, blues, opera and old R&B. If I search for Maria Callas and type in her name with 'mix' after it I might get a selection of her arias from great operas interspersed with recordings by other greats and, if I leave it going long enough a segue into other 'classical' music. Wonderful and as I can hear the music well enough from the lounge when I'm in the kitchen I can get on with my cooking.

The iPod is very portable and we easily take it from the lounge to the snooker room when we have a few games. The Old Girl has loaded hundreds of tracks on this which are automatically sorted by genre, album and artist so for example accessing Miles Davis can be done by individual tracks or albums or by setting a loop of all tracks. Just the thing for an hour or so of pool or snooker.

OK, I might be a Philistine but .... "Eeee I know what I like".

CALLAS

A BIT OF JONI MAGIC

The following two clips of Joni Mitchell singing her iconic song 'Woodstock' come from the excellent OPEN CULTURE website.

The two versions sung 31 years apart each have loveliness and show why she has been celebrated as one of the greatest folk/pop performers.



JONI MITCHELL - 'WOODSTOCK' 1969






JONI MITCHELL - 'WOODSTOCK' 1998

JUG JUG TO DIRTY EARS*

I see that The Rolling Stones tour in USA has been cancelled/postponed due to old Mick's health problem.


MICK JAGGER - HEART SURGERY




Well, they are getting on a bit. Mick Jagger is about 10 years older than me and there's no way that I could cavort around on stage the way he's been doing for years.

I was watching the British comedy programme 8 Out Of 10 Cats where Sean Locke compared the Rolling stones to a line up of Toby Jugs.  Funny.

Sean Locke

The Rolling Stones

Toby Jugs

The funny thing is that Toby Jugs have been made of The Beatles:

The Beatles in Toby form

And old Mick has been immortalised the same way:

Mick Jagger

* "Jug Jug to dirty ears" - from T.S. Eliot's The Waste Land



The change of Philomel, by the barbarous king

So rudely forced; yet there the nightingale

Filled all the desert with inviolable voice

And still she cried, and still the world pursues,

“Jug Jug” to dirty ears

ORTHOGRAPHY

ANNIE LENNOX - I PUT A SPELL ON YOU

I watched an Annie Lennox version of that great song I put a Spell On You  today and thought it was pretty good but not the best version I've heard.

You'd have to go far to beat Screaming Jay Hawkins'  original:

SCREAMING JAY HAWKINS - I PUT A SPELL ON YOU

But I have always liked Nina Simone's quiet and intense version:

NINA SIMONE - I PUT A SPELL ON YOU

Creedence Clearwater Revival, Bette Midler, Joe Cocker and others have done passable versions that are worth checking out but for me, the one that did it for me years ago was Arthur Brown's screaming version. His magnificent voice was just made for this song which has a lot of Hawkins' elements as well as some of the hamming up that Hawkins did in this version that got a lot of flack from the black community:

SCREAMING JAY HAWKINS (2) - I PUT A SPELL ON YOU

Here's Arthur Brown's version:

ARTHUR BROWN - I PUT A SPELL ON YOU

ARE YOU SICK OF CHRISTMAS MUSIC YET?

If not you might find this of interest:




WHAT MAKES MUSIC SOUND LIKE CHRISTMAS?

PREPARING FOR CHRISTMAS 2 - CANDYMAN

There have been a few different Candyman songs but the one that I've always preferred is this:

GRATEFUL DEAD - CANDYMAN

I was searching for this on Youtube tonight and was looking in the wrong place.

I thought it was a Hot Tuna song but Hot Tuna performed Rev. Davis's version. Grateful Dead's song was written by The Dead band members Garcia and Hunter and Hot Tuna was formed as a side project by Kaukonen and Casady who were Jefferson Airplane band members. I used to get them mixed up a bit as they all probably did themselves what with living in the same times and places back in the '60s and '70s.

"Look out, look out the Candyman
Here he comes and he's gone again
Pretty lady ain't got no friend
Till the Candyman comes around again"

1970 on the excellent American Beauty album.

This will be a Christmas Day choice although I haven't told The Old Girl yet. It can go with dessert.

PREPARING FOR CHRISTMAS

I've been looking forward to what music we will play on Christmas morning this year.
While we have no plans for a big Christmas bash and will not have a house full of guests this year - being just the two of us we plan to have a nice Christmas as, who knows, it might just be my last one.

No doubt The Food Curmudgeon, The Wine Guy, The Religious Curmudgeon and The Cultured Curmudgeon will all be making plans also but the responsibility for music will fall to me.

In the past we have had a tradition of putting on a mixture of classical, jazz and old popular classics  in the morning before a christmas lunch.

CHRISTMAS MUSIC

This year should be no different but I think that we'll pre-select (or at last I will and surprise The Old Girl) some 'tunes' that will set the mood.

One of them that I listened to this evening will be Enigma's Sadeness from the album Enigma MCMXC a D.

SADENESS

This provides the right amount of irreverence combined with voluptuous indulgence to start the day off.

I hope that Robert approves.