Desert Island Discs

Having to select eight pieces of music which may be the only music you ever hear again sounds fun, but is actually a tough challenge. After all, the process involves more agonising over what you must exclude than joy at what you will include.  

It feels wrong that I’ve included no music from Brazil, Cuba, West Africa, Nashville, and no flamenco, and only two classical pieces, and, and, and... It’s impractical to write-down my reasons for potentially including, but ultimately excluding, dozens of other artists and composers from my desert-island. I’m still keeping a longer list, just so I’m ready to re-consider my selection when I finally do get the call from BBC Radio 4 ;-)

However, before presenting my selection, I feel I have to give a brief mention to three significant exclusions. Their candidacy for inclusion is not so much down to my love of the music. On that basis there would be hundreds,  but it is also due to their connection with the story of my life.

1. Firstly, it is painful not to have included anything from the Motown catalogue. The problem in selecting a Motown song is that there are so many contenders. These include gems from Stevie Wonder, Marvin Gaye, the Temptations, The Four Tops, Smokey Robinson, The Jacksons, The Commodores, The Supremes, Gladys Knight… the list goes on, and even includes the bizarre anomaly of Charlene's (I’ve been to Paradise but) I’ve Never Been to Me ;-) 

Motown had already scored 36 number ones and countless top 10s in the UK charts before I was even 10 years old, so the music is deeply ingrained in my soul through passive consumption in my early years. The joy I derive from Motown songs has not diminished in later life. I also have a professional connection with Motown Records, it being the first corporate acquisition I worked on when working for PolyGram. I’d just turned 30 and I flew to Los Angeles to help put a financial valuation on the Motown catalogue. 

Lionel Richie is a particularly significant Motown connection. His song Hello is technically ‘our tune’ as it was number one when Fiona and I met in 1984. And in 1998 I regretfully turned down an invitation (from my boss) to dine with Lionel when he was on tour in Spain. And Three Times a Lady and Easy (like Sunday morning) still make me feel hugely nostalgic, not least for the many years listening to Steve Wright's indulgently sentimental Sunday Love Songs.  

2. The second notable exclusion is Andrew Lloyd Webber. When I was interviewed by Andrew in 2001, I felt I would have to hide from him the fact that I wasn’t a big fan of his music. As it turned out, I grew to appreciate his work very much, and there are some undeniable belters in his body of work, most notably in Jesus Christ Superstar, Evita, and Phantom of the Opera. But despite my loyalty (and my screen-credit for the Oscar-nominated Phantom movie), I feel that I could live without him on my desert island. 

3. Finally, Abba are worth a mention. Though very uncool to admit it, I secretly adored them in my teenage years so I was delighted when PolyGram acquired their catalogue. After featuring in the quirky but brilliant Australian movies Priscilla Queen of the Desert (another PolyGram connection) and Muriel's Wedding, Abba re-emerged as 'ironically cool' in the new millennium with the Mamma Mia musical. The location of the Mamma Mia movie also brings joyful memories of our sailing trips around Skiathos and Skopelos in the very special light and colours of the Aegean sea. 

But for now, let me explain the eight discs that did make the cut…. 

The Holly and The Ivy (trad.)

Recorded by The Torero Band, from the album Tijuana Christmas (1968)

Music in my early years 

I have few memories of my first home. Those that do remain are all warm, fuzzy and rose-tinted, and one particular image stands out. It is a recollection of coming downstairs to open Christmas presents when I must have been only 5 years old. The standout gift was a bright red plastic portable record player. It only played 45 rpm singles, but I recall being completely thrilled with it. There were two records which came with it: the Beatles’ Please Please Me, and Two Little Boys by Rolf Harris. The latter made number one in the charts in 1969, so it would have been an appropriate gift for my folks to buy (even if history now remembers Rolf rather differently 😬).

Neither of these songs come anywhere close to featuring in my precious eight discs for the desert island, but it’s interesting to reflect, in the context of my career in the music business, that the first record player in our home belonged to me, rather than to my parents. Could they have detected so early my curiosity for popular music?

Why I chose this as Disc 1

It might seem strange to have included such a cultural abomination in my list. But there was one annual family music ritual which took root in my musical consciousness more deeply than I may have realised. For many years it was part of the joy of Christmas morning when my Dad would get up before us and put this record on. Though my older brother and I had no doubt been awake for hours, we wouldn’t officially make our way downstairs until we received this sign – not so much the bells of Christmas, but rather the horns. Such happy memories. 🎅😃

Tijuana Christmas by the Torero Band, released in 1968, is a very cheesy but irresistibly festive groove. All filters of good taste and judgement must be removed for maximum enjoyment. Despite the cheesiness, I’ve found in looking it up on the internet that there are plenty of examples of other people recounting how much joy this record brought to their childhoods.

I’ve often wondered where my love of Latin music comes from. Taking a romantic and exotic view, I’d like to think that somewhere in my DNA there’s a strong genetic connection to an Afro-Cuban bloodline, a connection that will one day manifest itself as I spontaneously learn to play my congas, or master a ballroom Rumba. 

But sadly, I think the Latin influence may be more trivially rooted in the repeated annual exposure to Tijuana Christmas. It’s sad because I have a feeling that the musicians of the Torero Band had never actually ventured west of Welwyn Garden City. They are certainly not steeped in the gritty and sleazy culture of the actual Mexican-US border town of Tijuana. They are more influenced by the Californian Herb Alpert and his Tijuana Brass, the musical equivalent of what America did to Mexican food to make it more palatable. But I shouldn't knock Herb Alpert. He is the 'A' in the very impressive A&M Records, another label owned by PolyGram, and one whose Los Angeles offices and studios I visited several times in the 1990s.

Tijuana Christmas itself was a typically inauthentic product of the budget label MFP (Music For Pleasure) which made a fortune in the seventies using anonymous session musicians to cover chart-topping hits. One of their most successful products was a series called Hot Hits, and Keith may recall the saucy album covers of girls in hot pants, images that no doubt contributed to the success of those cultural atrocities.

Anyway, however inauthentically Mexican the Torero Band may have been, I did find some powerful remedial karma on the first day of the new millennium. On January 1st, 2000 I found myself in Tijuana, with my Mum and Dad, sitting on live donkeys and wearing genuine sombreros and ponchos (see the image in the carousel at the top of the page). Drinking margaritas and requesting traditional Mexican songs from a Mariachi band, it felt as though the Wheels (as we were referred to as a family) had come full circle, culturally-speaking!

And of course Tijuana has a very special significance for another of my desert-island-artists, but more of him later. You can see him at the age of 12 in Tijuana in the first image of the carousel at the top of this page.

Link to YouTube here

The track is only 2 minutes long, but even that is probably too much in the company of people with good taste. But listen out for the ‘groovy’ muted trumpet at 49 seconds…🎺😉

When the Levee Breaks (Kansas Joe McCoy and Memphis Minnie)

Recorded by Led Zeppelin (1971)

This is the first of two tracks on my desert island list that come from albums released in 1971. 

The song is the last track on Led Zeppelin's  4th album (untitled) which is listed in the worldwide top 10 selling albums of all time.

Personal connections 

• My first exposure to Led Zeppelin was in 1976 on a sick day off school, listening to my brother's home-taped copy of Led Zeppelin’s sixth studio album Physical Graffiti. 

• I was also into bands such as Cream, Fleetwood Mac, Deep Purple, Yes, Pink Floyd, The Who and Lynyrd Skynyrd, amongst many others. But Led Zeppelin felt like nothing I’d heard before. A deeper and more intense experience.  Over the subsequent months I eagerly worked my way through their first five albums. Blues purists might sneer, but it was only via Led Zeppelin that I came to understand the power of the blues, and this is the song which gives me the most visceral pleasure.

• In 1979, three years after I first ‘discovered’ Led Zeppelin, there was an opportunity to go and see them live at the Knebworth festival. It was their first concert in the UK since 1975. As it turned out it was their last concert, as John Bonham died a few months later from excess alcohol intake. 

It would be another 27 years before the band performed again, with Jason Bonham taking his father’s place on the drums. This one-off concert, held in 2007 at the London O2 arena, holds the record for the concert with the highest ever demand - 20 million requests for 20,000 available tickets.

There is a long-running Wheeldon family joke regarding my request for permission to go to the 1979 Knebworth concert. The concert coincided with our family holiday to Devon, and I (perfectly reasonably) suggested that my folks should drop me off en route, and I would then make my way to Salcombe afterwards. 

It was (as far as I recall) the only thing to which my otherwise very permissive parents ever said no. As I was only 15, perhaps it was not an unreasonable rejection. But at the time I struggled to accept such deprivation. Why could they not understand that this might be my one and only opportunity to experience something life-changing!?. 

My  teenage hyperbole still gets cited back to me at family gatherings  ;-)

About the song

It is a cover of a 1929 delta blues song, written to lament the 1927 Mississippi flood in which 13,000 people lost their homes. 

Internet research suggests that it uses some innovative recording technology and methods: 

• The famous drum performance was recorded by placing the drummer (John Bonham) and a brand new Ludwig drum-kit at the bottom of a stairwell at Headley Grange in Hampshire, and recording it with microphones at the top of the stairwell, giving the distinctive resonant but slightly muffled sound. 

• The harmonica part (played by Robert Plant) was recorded using the backward echo technique, putting the echo ahead of the sound when mixing, creating a very distinct effect. 

• The track was first recorded at a quicker tempo, then slowed down, explaining the "sludgy" sound, particularly on the harmonica and guitar solos. 

As Jimmy Page explains: ‘You've got backwards harmonica, backwards echo, phasing, and there's also flanging; and at the end, you get this super-dense sound, in layers, that's all built around the drum track. But you've got Robert’s vocal constant in the middle, and everything starts to spiral around him.’ 

Because this song was so heavily produced in the studio, it was difficult to recreate live; the band only played it a few times in the early stages of their 1975 U.S. Tour, before dropping it for good. 

What critics said about the track:

• it plays like an authentic blues song but "has the grandeur of a symphonic crescendo"

• "an apocalyptic slice of urban blues ... as forceful and frightening as the band ever got, and its seismic rhythms and layered dynamics illustrate why none of their imitators could ever equal them."

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Link to YouTube here

There are no video recordings of the band performing When the Levee Breaks, but YouTube does have a pleasing version by the all-girl Led Zeppelin cover band Zepparella (link here).

Savor/Toussaint L’Overture (Santana Band, 1971)

The studio version of Toussaint is from Santana III, the brilliant but under-rated follow-up to Abraxas. I first heard it as a live version on the 1977 album Moonflower, where it is combined with the track Savor from Santana’s eponymous 1969 debut album.

Background to the title of the song:

François-Dominique Toussaint L’Ouverture (1743 –1803), nicknamed the "Napoléon Noir" (the Black Napoleon) was the former slave and leader of the Haitian Revolution 1791-1804). His military genius and political acumen transformed an entire society of slaves under French colonial rule into the independent state of Haiti. The success of the Haitian Revolution shook the institution of slavery throughout the New World. 

I only became aware of Toussaint L’Ouverture, the person, 25 years after first listening to the song, so I can’t claim that the title is of great significance to me. 

The song has few lyrics, and may be roughly translated as: The skins (of the drums) are calling me; Come on girl, dance to my rhythm. So it’s a bit of a stretch to overplay its significance as an anthem of triumph over oppression. Nevertheless, the song has become one of my most consistent sources of ‘spiritual’ energy. 

My connection with the track

Moonflower is an album which was introduced to me by my friend and neighbour Julian when we were 14 years old and we became fans* together. 

I found the double album cover and sleeves mesmerising: the panoramic Himalayan dawn, the spiritual poem by guru Sri Chinmoy, (O Master Musician, Tune me for life again) and pictures of the band playing live. My imagination was captivated well before I’d heard a note of the music.

Toussaint first became important to me when it featured in a very powerful and euphoric dream I had in my early 20s – I was backstage at a concert which had a strong resemblance to Woodstock 1969. It felt as though Carlos was playing this song through me – like a warm surge of all-embracing love. Five years later, the closest thing I’ve known to a miracle occurred when the dream became a reality. I was actually on the stage when Carlos played Toussaint at the Woodstock 25th anniversary concert (1994) in upstate New York.

I was involved in organising the concert, or to be more precise trying to contain a financial catastrophe, having been roped in only a couple of weeks before. The organisers had come up with the ludicrous notion of only allowing people to transact in specially-minted Woodstock coins (they produced $25million of the stuff). However, they lost the ability to distribute cash around the site to supply the money-changing booths. So I spent most of my time fighting the 400,000 strong-crowd with tens of thousands of US dollars in notes stuffed inside my shirt to help alleviate the bottlenecks. 

I scarcely slept for 3 days but I did manage to exploit my Access all Areas pass to get on stage to see Carlos. If you look very carefully, you can watch me grooving on the Woodstock stage behind Carlos. Sadly not whilst he's playing Toussaint, but on the track Luz, Amor y Vida, just as he’s digressing into Stevie Wonder’s Another Star (from 4m.28s onwards). YouTube Link here.

Though I was exhausted, it was hard to suppress the sensation that my being there was somehow pre-ordained. This sensation was compounded by another extraordinary coincidence which had occurred only three months earlier. On that occasion, I had woken up one Saturday morning in our apartment in Manhattan with a random, but strong urge to buy a pair of conga drums. Fiona & I went downtown to a percussion shop in Greenwich Village and literally bumped into Carlos, and his percussionist Karl Perazzo, who helped me select the drums which now proudly sit in our TV room. 

I regularly play Toussaint at times when I want to raise my levels of consciousness, focus and energy. It’s like tapping into a universal current of electrical energy which induces unconditional positive feeling, and a belief that anything is possible. One particularly memorable time was in a hotel room in Stuttgart in 2008, ahead of my interview with Stefan von Holtzbrinck for the Macmillan CFO job. I have absolutely no doubt that it helped me raise my game.

Recordings (see links below)

The Moonflower version of Savor/Toussaint is not the cleanest performance of the song, but it is the most exciting. The six-minute percussion instrumental Savor sets the atmosphere at fever pitch – it has exceptional energy, with drums, congas, bongos and timbales all on fire. I often think that I love Santana more for the infectious and sometimes thrilling percussion** than the guitar, perhaps evidenced by naming our cats Coke and Chepito, both early Santana percussionists.

Alternatively, there is a very nice filmed performance of Toussaint (without Savor) at the 2016 reunion of the Santana Band. Bear in mind that this is a band that broke up in 1971 just after recording their third album and at the peak of their popularity. Apparently there were many stresses in the band as a result of creative differences, fast-living, touring pressures and a near death experience, all pulling members in different directions. So it's lovely to see them coming back together 45 years later as rock'n roll survivors.

For another great live peformance of Toussaint try the 1993 Sacred Fire - Live in Mexico recording, which is the one I play most often. You can also watch it on YouTube and get the full visual effect and energy of the band's live performances, including  Raul Rekow (congas) and Karl Perazzo (timbales). Toussaint may be an acquired taste, but if it's not your thing it's still worth watching many of the more recognisable Santana hits at the Sacred Fire concert. I'd suggest starting 25 minutes in at Black Magic Woman/Gypsy Queen followed by Oye Como Va, Samba Pa Ti, Guajira, Open Invitation, Make Somebody Happy, Soul Sacrifice, Europa, and Jingo-lo-ba.

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YouTube link to Toussaint performed at the 2016 reunion of the 1971 Santana Band

YouTube (audio-only) link to Savor/Toussaint (live version from Moonflower)

YouTube link  to the whole 1993 Sacred Fire concert (Toussaint starts at 1hour, 4m, 30s, and lasts for 7 minutes). 

Spotify link to the original studio recording from Santana III

Footnotes

*I have recently completed this discography of Santana's 40+ albums as a retrospective exercise to help me get my head around his huge catalogue of 500+ recordings over 50 years. It's a spreadsheet, and as well as capturing some comments and my favourite tracks (Spotify playlist here) from each of the albums, it also charts the many changes in the band line-up. They are all such brilliant musicians (including so many special guests), it's good to remember who is playing on each track. But perhaps of most value, the discography has lots of links to YouTube videos. It is truly extraordinary how much good live footage of Carlos there is out there, freely available. 

**In Carlos’ autobiography, The Universal Tone (2015), he recounts frequently getting into trouble with the ‘clave police’, referring to the purist Latin musicians who gave him a hard time with his innovations and corruptions of clave. Clave is the Spanish word for ‘key’ or ‘code’ and which also refers to the traditional 5 stroke rhythmic pattern at the heart of many afro-cuban rhythms such as rumba, son montuno, mambo, and salsa. Carlos himself argues that clave is not the exclusive domain of traditional Latin music, and that clave was already present in blues and rock before he started to exploit the crossover potential. Nevertheless, Carlos is unarguably a pioneer in taking it to another level, and the 'descargas' in Savor/Toussaint L’Ouverture are just stunning.  

Great Mass in C (K.427) – Kyrie (W.A. Mozart, 1783)

Mozart wrote this piece at the age of 26 to celebrate his marriage to Constanze.  In the 1984 movie Amadeus an extract is performed at their wedding* and it is in this context that I first came across it. Five years later, I felt that if it was good enough for Mozart’s wedding, it was good enough for mine ;-)

The local organist at Sibsey parish church near Boston was dreadful. This helped me persuade the vicar (and more importantly, Fiona’s father) that we should install my CD player, amplifier and large speakers at the back of the church. The success of this strategy was evidenced by one wedding guest even asking afterwards where we had hidden the soloist?

 More cheekily, I also insisted on making Fiona, her father and the congregation wait for five whole minutes into this opening movement before getting the signal to stand up for the crescendo, and the sublime moment when Fiona could start walking down the aisle. I have only one very blurred photograph of Fiona coming down the aisle. It has an impressionistic quality which is fitting as a recollection of the nervous, over-the-shoulder and dewey-eyed glance the waiting groom is permitted. But the music was crystal clear, and it still makes my heart burst with pride in contemplation of my beautiful bride. 

The Kyrie features in a fantastic scene in the movie when the jealous court composer Antonio Salieri has contrived to get access to Mozart’s scores by asking him to submit them to him for assessment. Mozart desperately needs the court patronage but refuses to submit his work out of pride. Constanze goes behind her husband’s back and brings the scores to Salieri in secret. As Salieri leafs through Mozart’s original, uncorrected and uncopied scores, open-mouthed in amazement at the evidence of his genius, we hear snippets of the music as imagined in Salieri’s mind. 

"I was staring through the cage of those meticulous ink strokes at an absolute beauty."

The final snippet is from the Kyrie, and just as the piece builds to its climax, the folder falls from the hands of the enraptured Salieri, and the music comes to a brutally premature stop. "Is it not good?" Constanze asks anxiously. "It is miraculous!" Salieri replies. YouTube link here to this magnificent 3 minute scene.

It’s hard to express just how big an impact this film had on me. There are two dimensions to its impact. 

• The first was a personal musical epiphany. Like many people, I was superficially familiar with Mozart's best known 'tunes'. But the movie is a superb exposition of the breadth and the depth of his genius. It transformed my appreciation not just of Mozart, but of all classical music. 

• The second dimension is dramatic and psychological. Peter Shaffer’s original play (upon which the movie is based) is brilliant, even without a musical score. For me, the story draws its dramatic power, and its psychological integrity, from the double-edged relationship we all have with art: the paradox that the more we appreciate artistic beauty and the brilliance of its creators, the more conscious we are of our own creative mediocrity. 

Salieri drives himself insane because he can’t forgive God for ignoring his talent and his dedication, and instead bestowing the gift of musical genius on someone as morally unworthy as Mozart. Despite being a highly accomplished and respected composer himself, (and considerably better remunerated than Mozart), Salieri recognizes all too painfully his own creative shortcomings. From his asylum bed, he labels himself the "Patron Saint of Mediocrity".

Whilst writing this I’m reminded of something Keith said to me many years ago. It was probably in response to me bleating on about wanting to write something worthy which might make a mark on the world. But what he said gave me great consolation. I don’t recall it word-for-word, but it went something like this: ‘The world needs people like us, Joff – people who can just take real pleasure in appreciating a wide range of stuff.’ I’m not sure he intended it as a great pearl of wisdom, but it did give me pause for thought. Recognition and appreciation of beautiful things is a gift in its own right, and one which should be accepted with gratitude and humility. It’s a dignified way to reconcile ourselves to our mediocrity, and Salieri could no doubt have benefited from Keith’s wise words.

YouTube video link to the Kyrie here, conducted by John Eliot Gardiner.

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*At her wedding Constanze actually sang the beautiful movement Et Incarnatus Est, which we played during the signing of the register. I was sadly not allowed a third piece from the Great Mass (the loud and majestic Gloria) to accompany our walk back down the aisle. The family clearly thought I was getting a bit carried away with the whole Amadeus theme!

No Woman No Cry (Bob Marley, Vincent Ford, 1975)

Originally recorded by Bob Marley and The Wailers

Performed here (with adapted lyrics) by Hugh Masekela. From the album Uptownship (1989)

My connection to the music

I love Bob Marley’s music. I am also thankful that as one of the many jewels in the PolyGram/Universal catalogue (through their ownership of Island Records), he contributed to my livelihood for many years. But to be clear, the connection here is more with the South African musician and anti-apartheid campaigner Hugh Masekela (1939-2018).

I first came across Hugh when I moved down to London after graduating in 1985. It was another musical introduction from my childhood friend Julian. Hugh had just released the album Waiting for the Rain which features one of his best known songs -Stimela – a powerful song about the coal train which runs from Mozambique to the gold mines of Johannesburg carrying the brutally exploited mineworkers. 

By 1985 Hugh had already been in exile for 25 years, ever since the Sharpeville massacre in 1960 when bans on public gatherings forced him to leave South Africa. But his career had a big lift in 1986 from Paul Simon’s Graceland, a project which featured dozens of South African musicians (including Hugh and his ex-wife Miriam Makeba). The Graceland project transformed cultural perceptions of South Africa and its music.

I had also become more aware of South African music and the anti-apartheid struggle through Fiona’s friend (and bridesmaid) Michele. And Cry Freedom, Richard Attenborough’s movie about Steve Biko, was released in 1987. I loved the movie and its beautiful soundtrack of South African music. 

Finally, in 1988 we attended the very moving Nelson Mandela 70th birthday tribute concert at Wembley stadium. 

For all these reasons Hugh Masekela’s music evokes very strong memories for me of being in my early twenties in London. Along with Live Aid in 1985, it reminds me of the power of music to stimulate hope for a better and fairer world.

The song 

The title of the song is sometimes misconstrued as being misogynistic, i.e. that men would be happier without women. But the song is quite the opposite. It’s really saying: No, woman, don’t cry.  It is a very tender song trying to reassure a loved one, offering comfort and hope in sad and oppressed times. Hugh’s amended lyrics refer explicitly to Nelson Mandela not seeing his family* for 26 years, but he keeps on smiling nonetheless in the belief that ‘Everything’s gonna be alright’. 

The song appeared on the album Uptownship in 1989, and I saw Hugh perform it beautifully that year at an intimate venue in Northwest London. Like all great horn players, Hugh’s tone is unmistakably his own. Here his flugelhorn solo is particularly plaintive, ironically undermining the optimism of his vocals and the lyrics. 

Although I liked it when I first heard it, I came to love it after Nelson Mandela was released from prison the following year (Feb 11, 1990). The subsequent events of the ground-breaking Truth and Reconciliation process and Mandela’s election as President of South Africa in 1994 have (for me) transformed the song from a passive song of suffering into a defiant song which echoes the ultimate triumph of the empathic but resilient human spirit.

YouTube link here  NB - the wonderful flugelhorn solo starts 2 minutes into the track. Even if the song is not your thing, listen to those 80 seconds of pure emotion. ❤️

* I imagine that it must have been annoying for Hugh Masekela that two of his best-known songs feature so prominently the hope of a future reunion between Nelson Mandela and his subsequently disgraced and divorced wife Winnie. Thankfully this doesn’t diminish the song. The other song is his 1987 hit, Bring Him Back Home (Nelson Mandela).

Concierto de Aranjuez (Joaquin Rodrigo, 1939)

2nd movement (adagio), performed by the Grimethorpe Colliery band (soloist Paul Hughes)

Composition

As well as being possibly the most famous piece of Spanish classical music, the Concierto de Aranjuez is probably also the most famous piece of classical guitar music from any country. It is therefore perhaps surprising that Rodrigo didn’t actually play the guitar - he was a pianist. 

Composed in Paris in 1939, it is notionally inspired by memories of the Royal Palace and gardens of Aranjuez, which is located about an hour’s drive south of Madrid. 

Rodrigo and his wife Victoria stayed silent for many years about the real inspiration for the second movement. The popular belief grew that it was inspired by the atrocity of the bombing of Guernica in 1937. In her autobiography, Victoria eventually declared that it was both an evocation of the happy days of their honeymoon and a response to Rodrigo's devastation at the miscarriage of their first pregnancy. 

Whatever the source, there is something about the second movement that makes me want to cry for something achingly beautiful, but also somehow irretrievably lost. Something that words could never capture.

My connection to the music

My first memorable encounter with the concierto was a TV broadcast of the BBC’s Young Musician of the Year in the late 1970s. It seemed strange for a guitar to face the full force of an orchestra,. Yet it never seemed overwhelmed and certainly held its own as a leading solo instrument in dialogue with other featured instruments, namely the cor anglais, bassoon, oboe and horn. The rhythm and energy of the first movement (allegro con spirito), combined with melodic power and intimacy of the subsequent adagio really changed my view of what a non-electrified guitar could achieve. 

It also opened my mind to a world of Spanish music. I hadn’t actually been to Spain when I first heard it, but the music gives you an extraordinary sensation that you have been there. It’s no exaggeration to say that this music planted firmly in my imagination some rich and romantic pre-conceptions of Spain which have not been diminished over the years. 

When we lived in Madrid, Fiona and I visited Aranjuez several times, usually on our way to nearby Chinchon for a good lunch. Amongst other associations, the music therefore also has gastronomic evocations of the roast lamb or suckling pig typical of the traditional venues which we frequented for a fine Castilian Sunday lunch, namely: El Escorial, Segovia, and Pedraza.

The Yorkshire connections

Fiona also loves this piece. She became acquainted with it earlier than me through the huge selling, self-titled 1960 album, ‘Manuel and his Music of the Mountains’. 

Much to Fiona’s disappointment at the discovery years later, Manuel was actually the pseudonym of Geoff Love, the arranger and composer from Todmorden, West Yorkshire. Not long after we first met, Fiona and I had a brief argument about the true composer of the piece, Rodrigo or Manuel, which has always raised a nostalgic smile between us whenever we hear the piece. Even after all this time, I’m still enormously tickled to discover that Manuel turns out to be a Yorkshireman!

But as much as I love the piece, I’m not sure it would have quite made it to my desert island list without its performance in one of my very favourite movies: Brassed Off (1996), see link below. 

 The plot of Brassed Off is based on the painful struggles of the town of Grimethorpe (called Grimley in the film) against coal pit closures under Margaret Thatcher’s government in the 1980s. Tara Fitzgerald plays Gloria Mullins, a naïve young coal industry analyst who returns to her hometown to assess the profitability of the pit. She also happens to be rather handy on the flugelhorn, and she auditions to play in the local brass band in which her late father had played. 

The band, being tied to the identity and to the fate of the pit, is also facing closure. When asked what she would like to play for her audition, she suggests Concierto de Aranjuez. Recognition only dawns on the quizzical faces of the suspicious and sexist band members when the band leader (played magnificently by Pete Postlethwaite) translates it as: ‘Orange Juice to you lot!’ 

Despite the implausibly high quality of her solo (in reality played by actual Grimethorpe Colliery band member Paul Hughes), the scene, and indeed the whole movie, is really quite authentic and very moving. 

The feel-good climax, with victory in the national brass band finals at the Royal Albert Hall, might seem like an implausible ‘Hollywood’ ending, but is factually accurate. And I’d defy anyone not to shed a tear at Pete Postlethwaite’s impromptu acceptance (or strictly, rejection) speech.

To be honest, I’d not previously been much of a fan of brass bands, having associated them with a rather grim, unsophisticated cultural aspect of my native Northern England. So the movie really was a revelation of the sensitivity and expressiveness which can be achieved by a brass band.  

There are many other interpretations of this piece of music which I also love (Miles Davis, Chick Corea, Alabina, Paco de Lucia), but the relevance of the Yorkshire-Spain cultural axis means that this has to be the one for the desert island! 

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YouTube video link here to the second movement of the Concierto de Aranjuez from the movie Brassed Off.

I can’t resist also including the movie links to the Royal Albert Hall finale (William Tell overture) and Pete Postlethwaite’s speech, even though they're not strictly relevant to my desert island discs: 

I’m also including the video link to Paco De Lucia’s recording

I have a particular fondness for Paco, having seen him perform in Madrid, London and lastly at the magical World Music Festival in Fes, Morocco, shortly before his death in 2014.

Paco's 1991 recording of the piece is significant because he was not proficient at reading musical notation. He claimed that he gave emphasis to rhythmical accuracy at the expense of the perfect tone preferred by classical guitarists. Rodrigo himself said that no one had ever played his composition in such a brilliant manner as Paco.

The Sensual World (Kate Bush)

From her album The Sensual World (1989)

Cultural heritage of the song

‘Stepping out of the page, into the sensual world’. The words of the refrain provide a clue that the song has a literary source. 

The lyrics have been very loosely adapted from Molly Bloom’s monologue - the famous ending to James Joyce’s Ulysses - a novel which is considered to be one of the most important works in modernist literature. Containing the longest sentence in the English language at 4391 words, Molly’s soliloquy is an early example of the ‘stream of consciousness’ style. Sometimes unintelligible, and frequently obscene, Ulysses was banned in the UK and US for the first 10 years after its first publication in 1922. 

Molly’s character broadly equates to the mythical figure of Penelope in Homer’s Odyssey. Whilst Penelope is faithful, Molly is certainly not. Her physicality contrasts with the intellectualism of the male characters. Joyce wrote in a letter that "the last word (human, all too human) is left to Penelope (Molly)."  The episode both begins and ends with "yes," a word that Joyce described as "the female word" and one that indicated "acquiescence, self-abandon, relaxation, the end of all resistance." 

As a student of literature, I struggled to read the highly inaccessible James Joyce, and felt that the whole ‘stream of consciousness’ thing to be a bit of an artistic trick which has received too much critical acclaim. Art needs to connect, and for me, Kate Bush’s interpretation of the ending of the book is a much more accessible, yet still authentic expression of the complex emotions of love and sex.

The song is the title track on Kate’s 1989 album. Curiously, she re-recorded the song more than 20 years later, re-titling it Flower of the Mountain.  The reason for re-recording it was that she had finally obtained copyright permission from the estate of James Joyce to use the actual lyrics. I much prefer her adapted lyrics in the original recording. 

Here is a link to a comparison I made of the lyrics so you can make your own mind up. 

The recording

The track opens with church bells -the traditional British Sunday morning ‘call to prayer’. It is a pleasing sound, and one which evokes (in me at least) worthy moral purpose, self-denial, and clean living - ‘sensible’ as opposed to the ‘sensual’ promised by the title of the song.  

So when the sound of a light whip marks the entrance of deep bass and slow groove, along with Kate’s wickedly suggestive words, the impact, dare I say ‘juxtaposition’, is deliciously provocative. It implies pews, pulpits and prayer-stools giving way to crushed petals and the sublime carnal pleasures of an alternative Sunday morning delight.

The real star of this show comes after 50 seconds, marking the first refrain – the Uilleann pipes played by Davey Spillane. Compared with other forms of bagpipes, these Irish pipes are known for being quieter, sweeter and with a wider range of notes. In this instance, they are the musical expression of a gorgeous, lustful groan, and later "as his spark took life in my hand" (at 3m 21s), a climactic sigh of pleasure. 

Why I like Kate Bush

There is something naïve, vulnerable and immature about Kate Bush. Her exceptional 4-octave vocal range (some say 6-octave?) often seems ridiculous and unnatural. Along with her esoteric and idiosyncratic lyrics, and her rare and eccentric performances, she may be considered to be a ‘Marmite’ artist. 

She treads a fine line between some moments of profound lyrical and musical beauty, and other moments of self-indulgent experimentation which betray the possibility that she may be completely bonkers. Either way, there is no doubt in my mind that she is an original and dedicated artist who just ploughs her own furrow without caring too much about what record companies think.

I don’t love all her work, but I love enough of it to believe that she is a rare spirit whose CBE is well-justified for her contribution to the great heritage of British pop music.  Anyway, this song made a big impact on me when I first heard it, and I still love it.

It’s difficult for anyone other than schoolboys of the late 1970s to appreciate the full fantasy-impact of Kate Bush’s emergence onto the pop scene. Indeed, so inspired was I by Kate’s evocation of Heathcliff and Cathy in Wuthering Heights*, that I enticed my first girlfriend up on to those very same ‘wily, windy moors’ for a cringing and near catastrophic romantic encounter.😬

Video link to YouTube

It includes lyrics displayed alongside well-matched dreamy, romantic images by the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood: Dante Gabriel Rossetti, John Everrett Millais, Evelyn De Morgan, John William Waterhouse.

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*Wuthering Heights is less than 10 miles from where I grew up.

Summertime (George & Ira Gershwin, DuBose Heyward, 1934)

From the album Porgy & Bess (1957) performed by Ella Fitzgerald & Louis Armstrong, arranged & conducted by Russ Garcia.

My connection

I can’t recall when I first heard Summertime, but the Ella & Louis CD of Porgy & Bess is one of the first CDs I bought (sometime in the mid-1980s). I not only fell in love with it, but also became fascinated by it.

Many years ago (pre-internet) I felt rather pleased with myself when I managed to compile a playlist of over 30 great covers of the song, notably: Charlie Parker, Sam Cooke, Billy Stewart, Miles Davis, Angelique Kidjo, Bobby Womack, Janis Joplin, Stan Getz and Sarah Vaughan. 

Apparently, there are now well over 25,000 recordings in existence making it arguably the most recorded song of all time. One of my favourite recent interpretations (2019) is by Lana del Rey which is itself a cover of Sublime's Doin' Time. 

About the song

In this famous recording featuring Ella and Louis, arranger Russ Garcia manages to combine lush orchestral arrangements with jazz-blues intimacy to summon-up the sultry atmosphere of Catfish Row, a black tenement on the waterfront of Charleston, South Carolina. The opening trumpet, and the vocals of both artists are sublime. 

I’m not qualified to explain in musicological terms why it is so special, so here are a couple of extracts from experts:

The lyrics have been highly praised by Stephen Sondheim. Writing of the opening line, he says

That "and" is worth a great deal of attention. I would write "Summertime when" but that "and" sets up a tone, a whole poetic tone, not to mention a whole kind of diction that is going to be used in the play; an informal, uneducated diction and a stream of consciousness, as in many of the songs like My Man's Gone Now. 

It's the exact right word, and that word is worth its weight in gold. "Summertime when the livin' is easy" is a boring line compared to “Summertime and". The choices of "ands" and "buts" become almost traumatic as you are writing a lyric – or they should, anyway – because each one weighs so much. 

Musicologist K. J. McElrath wrote of the song: 

While in his own description, Gershwin did not use any previously composed spirituals in his opera, Summertime is often considered a more optimistic adaptation of the African American spiritual Sometimes I Feel Like a Motherless Child. Gershwin was remarkably successful in his intent to have this sound like a folk song. This is reinforced by his extensive use of the pentatonic scale (C–D–E–G–A) in the context of the A minor tonality and a slow-moving harmonic progression that suggests a “blues”. 

All a bit above my head, but apparently this explains why the tune has been a favourite of jazz performers for decades and can be done in a variety of tempos and styles. 

I wish I had more to say about how this song connects to my personal history. All I can say is that it is always there for me as a reminder that some artists are touched by the hand of God.

Link here to YouTube  (with photo slideshow of Ella & Louis) 

*Link here to the YouTube video of Lana Del Rey's version (Doin' Time).

Maurizio's Party (Antonio Forcione)

Performed by the Antonio Forcione Quartet

Ten years after I created this list in 2014 my bookclub friend Steve caused me to question the criteria for including my first disc (Tijuana Christmas). 

Did I really want to listen to that on my desert island?!  

Fair point, and a good excuse to consider what I might replace it with. 

There is one artist who merits the revision. Someone whose live performances I have enjoyed many times, and who in 2021, just as COVID lockdown was partially lifted, agreed to create a very special experience in our garden at Bute Cottage. It's fitting that it is also someone who has very special significance to Keith and Kirsten. 

Kirst says that Antonio Forcione was the first live gig to which Keith took her. It was back in the 1980s at the Bull's Head in Barnes when Antonio had only recently made his way over from Italy to make an impression in London. 

Fiona and I first saw Antonio at the Hammersmith Riverside Studios in 2011 in  the new trio that he'd  formed for the Edinburgh festival that year. With kora player Seckou Keita and percussionist Adriano Adewale, the performance was exquisite: fresh, intimate and fizzing with creative energy. It's right up there with the best musical experiences I've ever had. 

A few  years after Keith died in 2015, I wrote to Antonio to ask him whether he would consider doing a small private concert in our garden. In Keith's memory, Kirsten had started an informal annual live music event. I knew it was a long shot, but I also knew how special it would be if Antonio agreed to do it. I didn't hear from him for a long time. 

But then, during the second COVID lockdown, Antonio contacted me. Apologising for the delay in responding, he said he would be delighted to do it as soon as lockdown rules permitted. We scheduled it for May 29th 2021, a month after Kirsten's 60th birthday. Musicians had not been allowed to peform live for a very long time, and this would be Antonio's first concert in ages. It was also a useful "warm-up" for his concert the following week at the world-famous  Ronnie Scott's Jazz Club in Soho. 

Still limited to the lockdown gathering rules of a maximum of 30 people, our garden was a perfect setting. Given the limit on numbers Antonio had graciously offered not to bring an assistant. So I drove over to his home in Chiswick to collect him and his equipment and we had a delightful chat on the journey back. He then spent over four hours at Bute Cottage, not only performing brilliantly, but charming all the guests with his anecdotes and wonderful sense of humour. 

It was a very very special experience, and a unique opportunity to spend time with a master-musician. 🙏🏼

Maurizio's Party is an ensemble piece, so he couldn't play it that night, but it's one of my favourite Antonio compositions. The YouTube video link gives a good snapshot of Antonio's immense talent. It also happens to be one of Keith's Desert Island Discs.

Video link to Maurizio's Party (live) - YouTube 

Some of you may know that Keith and Kirst have long been big fans of the Radio 4 show, Desert Island Discs.

A few months back, figuring that none of us were ever likely to do anything sufficiently noteworthy to appear on the show itself, Keith came up with the idea that we should do our own show. He felt that choosing and presenting eight pieces that were important to us would be fun, and that we might learn some new things about each other.

In practice, deciding which discs had most significance, or brought the most joy to our lives was really quite a tough process. It was more about agonising over what must be excluded than certainty about what deserved to be included. 

I mention Desert Island Discs here, because in many ways it is rather like the choices we face now, when trying to choose just a few things to share about the rich and varied life of our beloved Keith, and about the joy he brought to all our lives.

Fiona and I knew Keith for only 15 years.  I say only with some irony. Those 15 years have been crammed with more beautiful experiences than most friends deserve to share in a lifetime. 

Now, I’ve written down a note to myself here: "INSERT AMUSING ANECDOTE ABOUT KEITH AND CHEESE. OR PICK FROM THE FOLLOWING OPTIONS":

1. Clumsiness and uncontrollable giggling in sacred places 

2. Beards, virility and the Uzbekistan housewives

3. The incident with the gay haberdasher in Aleppo

Sadly we don’t have time for any of these, but if you catch me afterwards, I’ll try to explain. 

So what is it about Keith that leaves such a deep impression upon us? 

A few adjectives spring to mind: open, curious, engaging, warm, witty.  We might also say: stylish, dapper, tasteful, unpretentious, discerning.

 All of these words are applicable, but even taken together they still do not quite capture that elusive quality which might explain the impact Keith had on all those whose lives he touched. 

The fact is that everyone liked Keith, and it’s impossible to imagine anyone meeting him and not liking him. It’s a quality that meant he could fit into any situation, with any community of people. From the tough oil-workers of the North Sea drilling platforms, to the sharp-suited executives of the corporate world.

In fact, so good was he at fitting-in, that for a time it earned him the reputation as my stand-in wife, at least for corporate entertaining whenever live music was involved. I could take him anywhere, and he’d just be himself, taking an interest in people, and quietly charming everyone he met. It is a rare and beautiful quality.

Keith was also immensely knowledgeable. There is a nice irony that he lived and worked in environments where almost everyone had more academic and professional qualifications than he had. Yet it was Keith who was generally the most well-informed – especially about the important stuff: history, art, books, music, horse-racing…the list is long. 

It never ceased to amaze me the range of stuff he knew, and it struck me that the quality of his knowledge was rich because he absorbed and retained things according to his priorities and passions, not those imposed upon him by institutional education and training. 

Keith was not driven by ambitions of power, wealth or status. He  was neither a celebrity nor a saint. His ambition, if indeed that is even the right word to use, was for a life well-lived, and in that, I believe his only disappointment was that it ended too soon. Way too soon. 

I was recently reminded of something Keith said to me many years ago. It was probably in response to me bleating about wanting to achieve or produce something worthy which might make a mark on the world. But what he said gave me great consolation: he said: 

‘the world needs people like us, Joff – people who are just good at sharing real pleasure in appreciating a wide range of stuff.’ 

I’m not sure he intended it as a great pearl of wisdom, but it did make me think. Recognition, appreciation and sharing of beautiful things and beautiful experiences is a gift in its own right. One which should be acknowledged with gratitude and humility. It is a gift which Keith had in bucket-loads.

I’ve painted a picture of Keith up to this point as if he existed in isolation, as a stand-alone individual. But we all know that this picture has a gaping hole in it. It’s like a portrait of Albert with no Victoria, Lancelot without Guinevere, Anthony with no Cleopatra, or Napoleon without his Josephine. Perhaps a more fitting comparison, and one which is sure to bring-back memories for everyone of Keith singing and playing, would be Van Morrison without his Brown-Eyed Girl. 

Or more relevantly, his blue-eyed girl. Keith’s devotion to Kirst (and hers to him) goes beyond anything I can do justice to. I feel rather hopeless even trying to do so. 

So now I’ll hand-over to …. who is going to read out some of the things which Kirst would like to say about her beloved Keith.