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Quite possibly the greatest and most gifted record producer of the age.
Definitely irreplaceable…
From the many, many obituaries and retrospectives published since his passing, this piece from the Guardian seems to me to illustrate best the sheer breadth and depth of Quincy’s talent.
Rest in peace.
It has been a sad year for those who are involved with… or who have an interest in… or who are passionate about… the business of music. Yet another of our creative giants has succumbed to age and/or illness. Canadians, naturally, need little encouragement to celebrate one of their own greats; in this case the inimitable Robbie Robertson, who sadly passed away yesterday at the age of 80.
We were, last night, at this year’s penultimate Music in the Park in Brentwood Bay and the evening’s act – local cover band, ‘Shaky Ground’ – were moved to knock out a slightly chaotic (and definitely un-rehearsed!) rendition of ‘The Weight‘ as a tribute. It seemed apposite in its sincerity (much as did the version of “Imagine” unexpectedly rendered by Freddie Mercury and Brian May of Queen at Wembley Arena in London all those years ago the night after John Lennon was shot in New York).
I posted to this blog back in 2016 a piece entitled “The Boy(s) in the Band“ – having attended an audience with Robertson at the Farquhar Auditorium at the University of Victoria on the occasion of the publication of the first volume of his autobiography – ‘Testimony‘. If you should not be Canadian – and perhaps thus less likely to know the detail of Robertson’s background – that piece might offer a useful starting point. I also strongly recommend Daniel Roher’s excellent documentary – “Once Were Brothers” – which can be found on one or more of the usual streaming services.
In another of my earlier posts – from even longer ago, back in 2013 – I made reference to Robbie’s wonderful album – “Music for the Native Americans“, the which draws on his First Nations heritage. This I also strongly recommend.
Rest in peace.
Tags: Loss, Memories, Music, RIP, Robbie Robertson
Such is life… and death.
This week two huge figures in my personal pantheon have gone beyond this place:
David Crosby was a major musical figure for much of my life and, whereas CSN(Y) were maybe not quite in my premier league of immortal bands, I found myself coming back to them again and again as the years passed. What drew me in were, of course, the sublime harmonies… to which I still routinely refer whenever I have a harmony of my own to write. For this – and for the bittersweet songs – much respect. ‘Helplessly Hoping’ indeed…
Jonathan Raban was a year younger than was Crosby but, I suspect, hailed from a very different world. The Guardian’s obituary starts:
“The British author, who lived in the US, blended memoir and travelogue in books that were often inspired by the sea”
Another Guardian piece is entitled:
“Jonathan Raban: his travel writing could pierce your heart”
What’s not to like?
Raban’s best book – for my money – is “A Passage to Juneau“. What appears on the surface to be an account of a sailing trip from Seattle, up the Inside Passage to Juneau in Alaska, is actually a disquisition on the death of Raban’s father and the slow-motion wreck of his own marriage. It is also a revelatory and sublime introduction to the Pacific Northwest – and thus not to be missed.
David Crosby – Jonathan Raban – Rest in Peace…
Further sadness this week at the news of the passing of Welsh rugby player/captain/journalist/peerless commentator/iconic voice of Welsh rugby.
It feels slightly awkward to be mourning someone even so loved and well known as was Eddie Butler (in the world of Rugby Union at least) at this time when most eyes are focused more intently on Westminster Abbey and on the great state occasion that is the funeral of the UK monarch… one who graced the throne for longer than any previous king or queen.
There is here – clearly – a lesson on the dispassionate nature of death, which as we know well – “Waits for no man“…
I was not really aware of Eddie Butler as a player; back in the early 80s my interest in rugby was still at a very nascent stage. Later, however, his commentaries, his journalism, his narration of many a program eulogising the game and its various campaigns and tournaments (particularly in that wonderful Welsh accent that just seems right for such occasions) became a fixture in the sporting calendar as much as did the great game itself.
Yet another colourful part of the fabric of our lives has gone and will be sadly missed.
Tags: Eddie Butler, Loss, Memories, Rugby, Sport
It is with great sadness that we mark the passing of Queen Elizabeth II – the longest serving monarch in British history. Our sincere and deepest condolences to the members of the Royal Family.
This is truly the end of an era. Her Majesty was crowned a matter of months before I was born and has been a constant presence serving the nation throughout my life – as she was for all those of us who hail from similar generations. In a world that has seen so many tempestuous changes hers was a stable and calming existence that brought some degree of certainty to the most uncertain of times. That the nation – and the world in general – is yet in such dire need of positive influences only makes this news all the more sad.
Requiescat In Pace.
There is little that I could write about the towering figure of post-war British theatre that was Peter Brook that could not – and will not – be far better addressed elsewhere. His influence on the theatre was immense, even once he had retreated to Paris and was less frequently seen in the UK. Sadly I was too young to catch the productions at the Royal Shakespeare Company that cemented his reputation (the which famously included ground-breaking productions of ‘A Midsummer Night’s Dream‘ and ‘Marat/Sade‘) and I only saw the filmed version of ‘The Mahabharata‘.
Brook was – of course – not only a theatre practitioner, but also a teacher, a thinker and a writer on the subject of the noble arts. Theatre students today would do just as well to seek out his many books. A quick hunt around my shelves reveals copies of ‘The Shifting Point‘, ‘There are no Secrets‘, ‘The Tip of the Tongue‘ and – of course – ‘The Empty Space‘ – without which I would not be.
A sad loss to the theatre and to the world.
Alan White joined a favourite band of my younger years – Yes – in 1972, replacing the much loved Bill Bruford. Famously, Yes were about to tour the US (a tour which formed the backbone of the live album – YesSongs) and White had three days to learn their complex material. Fortunately he was no novice, being already known for his work with John Lennon and Yoko Ono’s Plastic Ono Band, as well as for Ginger Baker’s Air Force, Joe Cocker and George Harrison.
I first saw Yes live in London in 1975, at Loftus Road (the home of soccer club Queen’s Park Rangers). Another well known member of the band – Rick Wakeman – had left before the recording of their then latest album – Relayer – and they had invited Vangelis (who had at that point been part of Aphrodite’s Child with Demis Roussos) to replace him. Vangelis turned the band down (being, apparently, reluctant to travel) so I saw them in 1975 with Patrick Moraz on keyboards.
Vangelis – who is probably best known for his celebrated award-winning soundtracks for films such as Chariots of Fire and Bladerunner – did eventually team up with Yes’s vocalist – Jon Anderson – as the successful duo Jon and Vangelis.
It is always sad to mark the passing of one’s ‘heroes’ and they will both be sadly missed.
It seems somehow wrong to be writing about something as apparently trivial as sport with the world currently enveloped in darkness. It is, on the other hand, perhaps exactly the right moment to be considering things that can, on occasion, be noble and pure – and represent some of those qualities about our species which can be positive. Either way I cannot ignore the occasion of the sad passing – mere days apart – of two of the legends of a sport that still, to many, represents our human nature in one of its finest forms.
I inherited a passionate love of cricket from my mother (Father – bless him – did not do sport at all) and I thank her most fervently for that. I grew up following the game in the 60s, 70s and 80s and beyond – and then, when quite old enough to know better, took up playing village cricket in my mid forties. I turned out for our local side reasonably regularly right up until our departure for Canada.
Anyone who followed the recent Ashes series ‘down under’ might understandably complain about the current parlous state of English cricket. Though I would not blame anyone for so doing I would just draw attention to the wide variety of previous eras in which we also came off second best at the hands of those who wear the ‘green baggy’. Throughout the 1970s we were not only regularly pulverised by the memerising pace of the West Indian quicks (fast bowlers) but also routinely humiliated by the unearthly powers of the great Dennis Lillee and the wild and uncontrollable Jeff Thompson. If they were bowling you can bet your bottom dollar that, twenty two (and a fair bit more) yards away would be the Aussie wicket keeper – Rodney Marsh. The familiar statement – “Bowled Lillee – Caught Marsh” – graced all too many scorecards.
As quoted in The Guardian the current Australian Captain – Pat Cummings – said of Marsh.
“I, along with countless other people in Australia, grew up hearing the stories of him as a fearless and tough cricketer, but his swashbuckling batting and his brilliance behind the stumps over more than a decade made him one of the all-time greats of our sport, not just in Australia, but globally, When I think of Rod I think of a generous and larger-than-life character who always had a life-loving, positive and relaxed outlook, and his passing leaves a massive void in the Australian cricket community.”
Cruel fate that the legendary Aussie leg spin bowler, Shane Warne, should pass away just a few days later. Crueler yet that Warne was a relatively young man at 52. Matthew Engel wrote in his Guardian obituary:
“Shane Warne, who has died aged 52 of a suspected heart attack, was almost certainly the greatest spin bowler cricket has ever produced. More than that, he was one of the most outsize personalities of any sport. Everything he did in his game and his life was on a grand scale: he lived fast and, it transpires, died young. Warne singlehandedly revived the discipline of leg-spin, which by the time he burst into Test cricket in the 1990s was almost a lost art. He arrived into an Australia team that had already embarked on a run of eight Ashes series wins and made it overwhelmingly stronger – he was still in the business of terrorising Englishmen when he retired from Test cricket 14 years later”.
I will certainly not be alone in remembering clearly watching on the BBC the occasion on which Warne made his test debut in the UK. With the then English captain, Mike Gatting, at the crease the ball was tossed to Warne for his first spell. The very first ball turned off the pitch nearly at right angles and, having pitched well outside the leg stump, clipped the top of the off stump. Gatting could do nothing but stand and stare in amazement. Truly (as almost immediately dubbed) “The ball of the century“.
It is perhaps the nature of the game almost as much as the way that these two larger than life characters played it that they will be missed in the UK (and beyond!) almost as much as they will be in Australia.
I posted to this forum a little under a year ago a somewhat reflective missive entitled ‘Time Passes’. The subject of that post was this very journal; the trigger for my writing it the circumstance that the ninth anniversary of my very first blog post had then but recently occurred.
I pondered the actuality that I had certainly not set out to embark on a project that would shamble on for quite such a long time – its longevity having surprised me just as much as I imagine it would anyone else who devoted so much as a moment’s thought to the matter.
I wrapped up that epistle by musing that – having gotten so close – I really did feel inclined to keep things going for long enough that my efforts would have encompassed an entire decade!
And here we are! Hoorah!!
I can’t help thinking that some sort of celebration might be in order, though not – heaven forfend – anything that breaches Covid protocols (or indeed breaks the law). I am not sure what form that might sensibly take.
Last year I included some statistics – for them as likes such things. Here they are again – but updated (with last year’s figures in brackets).
In the nine ten years that I have been writing this blog I have written 1025 (925) posts (averaging just over 100 posts a year – approximately two a week). If the internal statistics are to be believed I have written a little over 401,000 (365,000) words in that time and uploaded some 2,845 (2,590) images – many of them my own photographs.
As I wrote last year – “Not bad, huh“?!
In last year’s post I toyed with the notion of it long being time to wind things up. In the light of some most kind and affirmative remarks from gentle readers I determined instead to keep things going.
My thought this year would be that I could perhaps reduce the frequency of my posts, from the current average of around two a week to just a single weekly post. It is not that I mind the discipline of knocking out regular posts but as I get older I do wonder if there is still enough of interest on which to report.
Do let me know what you think…
It is, sadly, that time of year when those who are elderly or infirm – or who have been fighting against illness or disease – are perhaps at their most vulnerable. It should come as no surprise that amongst the number of those who pass at this time there will inevitably be found great men and women whose loss – though no more profound than those less known – may touch a greater number of those of us who remain.
It is but a few days since Stephen Sondheim was mourned in these jottings – and of course in many other fora. Now comes news of the passing of the great Shakespearean actor – Antony Sher. Sher was born and brought up in South Africa in the 1950s and 60s, before fleeing to London to train to be an actor. His record as a great Shakespearean – with the Royal Shakespeare Company and with other prestigious companies – is detailed splendidly in many other places and one could do worse than to start with Wikipedia.
Sher also wrote a number of books and his memoir of the year in which he played Richard III at the RSC – a role that cemented his reputation – was published in 1985 as “The Year of the King“.
Sher was married to Greg Doran – the Artistic Director of the RSC. I had the very great fortune to meet both men whilst working at my penultimate school. Doran had – as I recall – been invited to judge one of the School’s many competitions and Antony Sher accompanied him. At the dinner that inevitably follows such events I found myself sitting beside the latter for a while. I had just read his autobiography – “Beside Myself” – in which he wrote movingly about his relationship with his late father. At that point (in the early 2000s) my father had also recently died and we had a conversation about the effect that this has on one. He was entirely gracious and thoughtful and I was most grateful that he had been prepared to be so open with someone that he had not previously met.
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