Forget Me Not

As we approach the end of this year, another great 20th Century singer/performer/writer has left us.  George Michael made the 1980s more memorable for me with some of the best songs of that strangest of decades.

Wham! made some of the best singles of the mid 80s and supplied a funky antidote to the stilted seriousness of Spandau Ballet and other "New Romantics".  Here is their best single:

George, of course, became a somewhat more serious solo artist and continued his career with hits like Careless Whisper and Faith.  His masterpiece, however, was Fast Love, a song that continues his recurring themes of not wanting responsibility and instead attempting to forever continue the thrill of finding new excitement:

The 21st Century saw a decline of his songwriting powers as apparently too many drugs stifled his talent.  We should not though forget what a talent he had, and his heart was always in the right place as his benefits for NHS Nurses and striking miners showed.

Farewell George and thank you.

                                       

Epitaph

Today brought the very sad news of Greg Lake's passing to cancer yesterday.  I first became aware of him as part of the original King Crimson in 1969 with their phenomenal first LP, In The Court Of The Crimson King.  The song Epitaph from that album haunted me then and now seems more prescient than ever:

Soon afterwards, Greg became part of ELP.  Here is one of their best songs, Karn Evil 9 from Brain Salad Surgery:

Perhaps his most memorable song, however, is I Believe In Father Christmas from 1975:

So another great musician from the 20th Century leaves us this year.  Farewell and thank you Greg.

The Horror...The Horror

Late 1979. Apocalypse Now...Marlon Brando as Colonel Kurtz going mad. A world that has been going madder ever since.

The 1980s were the decade when the "modern" world started taking shape. Margaret Thatcher in London, Ronald Reagan in Washington. John Lennon shot dead in New York City by a "lone nut".  The Soviet Union immersed in an unwinnable war in Afghanistan and slowly imploding as "star wars" technology threatened the status quo.

The emphasis was back on the individual rather than the common good. Controlling the money supply and "trickle down" economics were suddenly all the rage as mass unemployment was no longer morally unacceptable. Farewell Harold MacMillan and the post war consensus.
The dawn of neo conservatism was upon us. The eighties were a time when the Taliban were on the West's side against the "evil empire" of the Soviets and tax cuts for the better off and over three million unemployed men and women were the new normal.

In Britain, the Falklands War made Mrs Thatcher unbeatable for the rest of the decade. Michael Foot was a patriot and a decent man, but no match for the Iron Lady. Neil Kinnock seemed also to have his heart in the "right" place but his rambling oratory was just wish washy against the Prime Minister's straight to the point ultra certainty.

The "Big Bang" liberated the UK's financial market and the rise of the Yuppie contrasted with the fall of the working class. Computers entered businesses and homes and mobile phones began their takeover of the world. Britain was two nations again as the South East boomed and the North went bust.

In the end of course, Europe "did" for Mrs Thatcher. Little did we know then, however, that a quarter of a century later her successors would get their revenge with Brexit.

R.I.P. The Greatest

The Rumble in the Jungle...30th October 1974 in Zaire.  Ali vs Foreman.  One of my heroes is Muhammed Ali, not just because he was an incredible boxer but also because he was one of the greatest human beings of my lifetime.

George Foreman was one of the hardest boxers I have ever seen,,, he had pulverised the great Joe Frazier the year before in Jamaica and I feared that Ali would meet a similar fate.  However, the fight turned out to be different to all predictions...Ali did not dance away, he employed the "rope a dope" tactic to wear Foreman out.

In the eighth round, Ali suddenly sprang into life and hit a tired Foreman with a final combination.

 

The "Greatest" was world champion again.  Afterwards, a long slow decline would set in as age and too many hard fights took their inevitable toll  Time, however, can never take away the brilliance of Muhammed Ali.  A man who was always true to himself and his beliefs..not of course perfect, but by far one of the real greats.  Thank you Muhammed...you enriched so many lives. Rest In Peace

Disco

Spring 1974.  Winter Gardens Llandudno.  Yours truly is slightly inebriated and hears the sweet sounds of Rock Your Baby by George McCrae being played by Orville J Heap.  That was one of my first encounters with Disco music and began an era that helped make the rest of the 1970s that little bit special.

Rock Your Baby was written and produced by Harry Wayne Casey and Richard Finch of KC and the Sunshine Band who released some of the greatest singles of the next few years including That's The Way (I Like It), (Shake, Shake, Shake) Shake Your Booty and Keep It Comin' Love.  However,  there would be many fabulous songs over the next half decade that were related to Disco.  From Donna Summer to David Bowie and from The Bee Gees to Chic, dance music ruled the charts. 

People tend to hark back to "golden ages" as they get older and each person has their own particular one(s).  The music of the 60s was a marvellous soundtrack to my childhood, but the 70s saw my teenage and early twenties years...the years that seem to stick the most.  What wonderful music accompanied this decade.  Many pundits drone on relentlessly about how the 1970s was a time of upheaval,  grimness and decline.   However,  what they miss is what a great time it was to be alive for so many people.  The freedoms won in the previous decade were added to and instead of wallowing in self pity, the people decided to enjoy themselves and dance.

1977 saw Saturday Night Fever hit the screens and turntables and The Bee Gees comeback was complete.  Georgio Moroder helped Donna Summer make the fantastic Once Upon A Time LP which married electronic music to more traditional sounds.  Similarly, David Bowie's groundbreaking Low album mixed a funktastic rhythm section with synthesisers to amazing effect.

Standout singles of the era included Boogie Oogie Oogie, I Love You, Wishing On A Star and Rappers Delight.  Best of all perhaps were Chic.  Bernard Edwards and Nile Rodgers fronted a band that encompassed funk, r & b, soul and violins.  Songs such as I Want Your Love, Le Freak and    Good Times sound as good today as almost forty years ago.  Of course, Disco has never really gone away and Daft Punk's Random Access Memories album from 2013 featured incredible songs such as Lose Yourself To Dance  and Give Life Back To Music harked back to Chic at their best (helped by Nile Rodgers on rhythm guitar).

Total Football (in memory of Johan Cruyff)

The early 1970s was the era of "Total Football", the name given to an influential tactical theory in which any player could take over the role of any other player in the team.  In this fluid system, no outfield player had to stay where he "should" be; anybody could play as a forward, a midfielder or a defender.  

The Ajax Amsterdam and West Germany teams of 1971 to 1973 had brought notice of this counter to "catenaccio" defending, but it was the Netherlands team of the 1974 World Cup in West Germany that best exemplified the style of the system...Cruyff, Neeskens, Krol, Rensenbrink and Rep...just some of the names that bring back so many memories. 

England had failed to qualify for the finals for the first time since entering the competition in 1950.  They had been knocked out by Poland the previous October in a game made famous by the incredible performance of the Polish goalkeeper Jan Tomaszewski who had made a string of sensational saves during the match at Wembley.

The opening group games saw a very different Brazil team to that of 1970.  The reigning champions were now a hard tackling, more compactly defensive team that was determined to not be kicked out of the tournament as they had been in 1966. The other main change was that Pele had retired leaving Jairzinho and Rivelino as the two main goalscorers.

Poland meanwhile were proving to be one of the best teams of the competition, scoring 12 goals in their three first round matches. Holland had also won their group, but the most dramatic event of the first round was the meeting of East and West Germany for the first (and only) time in a professional tournament.  Sparwasser scored the only goal of the game and this was enough for the East Germans to win the group.  However,  this proved to be something of a poisoned chalice, as they ended up in the same second round group as the Netherlands and Brazil!

Yes. The format had changed from Mexico 70. Instead of Quarter and Semi Finals, there were now two further groups that would decide the finalists. The second round of group matches showed the Netherlands at their very best, with Cruyff orchestrating their total football tactics against Argentina,  East Germany and finally Brazil.  The game against the then reigning champions symbolised a changing of the guard with the Brazilians resorting to rough tackling in an attempt to nullify the Dutch skill (not that Cruyff and his team were innocents abroad - they too were not afraid to mix it and gave as good as they got). The Netherlands ended up beating Brazil 2 - 0 and reached the final.

In Group B, West Germany overcame Yugoslavia,  Sweden and Poland to earn the right to play for the new World Cup trophy in the Olympic Stadium in Munich on 7 July. The game began with a penalty; the first one ever awarded in a World Cup final. Johan Neeskens powered the ball past the German keeper Maier to put the Netherlands 1 - 0 up after a minute's play.

The Dutch failed to capitalise on their dramatic start though, and referee Jack Taylor awarded a second penalty to West Germany after 25 minutes which Paul Breitner scored to make it 1 - 1.  Just before half time, the great Gerd Muller expertly controlled a cross from Bonhof to steer the ball into the goal to score the winner. Try as they may in the second half, the Netherlands could not equalise and West Germany became the new World Champions.

So ended the brief heyday of Total Football.  It evolved, of course, due in no small measure to the coaching influence of a certain Dutch master at Barcelona.  I write this a few weeks after the passing of Johan Cruyff, a man who brought magic to the game of football.  Rest In Peace and thank you.

David Bowie - Right video (Never No Turnin' Back)

Rest In Peace

I woke to the very sad news this morning about David Bowie.  He has been a part of my life since Space Oddity in 1969, but we lost touch for a few years.

Like a lot of my friends and many other teenagers in Britain, David Bowie came back into my world in July 1972 when he appeared on Top Of The Pops as Ziggy Stardust (with his Spiders From Mars).  Starman really did seem from another world…It appears such a relatively simple song, but when Bowie looked into the camera about halfway through and pointed (“…so I picked on you”) his career really started to take off.  Hit followed hit for the rest of the decade…Life On Mars; The Jean Genie; Rebel Rebel; Young Americans; Golden Years; Sound and Vision; Heroes; Boys Keep Swinging and finally in 1980 the incredible Ashes to Ashes.

Of course his albums were stupendous…Diamond Dogs and Low being (just about!) my favourites, but from Hunky Dory to Scary Monsters (and Super Creeps) his range of music and styles were amazing.  Other stand out songs for me include Panic in Detroit; Sweet Thing, Candidate, Sweet Thing (Reprise); Right; Fascination; Can You Hear Me; Station to Station; Be My Wife; Subterraneans; Blackout and The Secret Life of Arabia.

1983’s Let’s Dance LP featured some good stuff, but was nowhere near as high a standard as most of his 70s work.  Tonight the following year was the last album I bought of his for some time.  Apart from the catchy Blue Jean, the rest of the songs were pretty dire.  I did purchase the first Tin Machine LP and Prisoner of Love was a great song and the rest were certainly an improvement on his recent work.  Around this time I mostly stopped buying records (never really did like CDs) so his work since then is known to me only in certain songs I have heard.  However, the fanfare that greeted 2013's The Next Day album made me listen to it on YouTube.  Where Are We Now is a brilliant song and there are some other gems on there as well.  However, David Bowie’s 1970s singles and LPs will always represent for me some of music’s finest moments.

Thank you so much David for everything.

To Boldly Go...

Star Trek first aired on BBC One in July 1969.  I was twelve years old and loved it from its first moments.  Where No Man Has Gone Before was the episode and it featured a man whose eyes glowed silver after the Enterprise encountered a strange "barrier" at the edge of the galaxy.  He became some sort of superman who was a threat to the rest of the crew.  Kirk eventually overcomes him and saves the day which would become a regular theme throughout the series. 

Star Trek broke many television boundaries throughout its three series, including showing people of different cultures working and living together happily.  Many episodes were types of morality plays where Kirk and his crew were tested over ethical matters.  The relationship between the emotional Captain Kirk and the logical Vulcan Lieutenant Spock was at the heart of the programme's appeal. 

My favourite episode of all was The City on the Edge of Forever which featured Joan Collins.  Having gone mad due to an accidental overdose of medicine, Dr McCoy goes back in time to earth in the 1930s in the process altering history.  Kirk and Spock go after him to New York in an attempt to retrieve him and time itself.  After stealing some clothes to blend in, they meet a woman named Edith Keeler who runs the 21st Street Mission. They offer to work for her. Spock begins to attempt to  find out how McCoy has altered history.

Kirk begins to fall in love with Edith, who is very interested in the future. McCoy stumbles into the mission where Edith takes him in, unbeknownst to Kirk. Spock finishes his work and reviewing the images of the original and altered timelines, discovers that Edith was supposed to have died in a traffic accident, which was somehow prevented by McCoy. Instead, Edith lived on to start a pacifist movement which influenced the United States sufficiently to delay its entrance into World War II, thus allowing Nazi Germany time to develop an atomic bomb and win the war. Kirk knows that Edith must die in order for time to return to normal.

Meanwhile, Edith nurses McCoy back to health, and he tells her his story. Though Edith is sceptical, she tells McCoy that he would like her eccentric new boyfriend.  Later, as Kirk and Edith are walking to the movies, Edith mentions Dr. McCoy. Alarmed, Kirk tells Edith to stay there before running to find Spock. The three friends meet in front of the mission. As a curious Edith crosses the street to join them, she steps in front of a fast-moving truck. Instinctively, Kirk reacts, but freezes when Spock stops him. McCoy is restrained by Kirk as Edith is knocked down and killed. 

McCoy tells Kirk that he could have saved her. “Do you know what you just did?" he says. Spock responds quietly, "He knows, Doctor. He knows." With Edith's death, history reverts to its original form.  

Star Trek continued for three series before resurfacing at the end of the 1970s with the first of six motion picture films.  The final movie (The Undiscovered Country) was the best of the series with a fine mixture of drama, adventure and comedy.  Forget Star Wars and even Doctor Who, Star Trek is the best science fiction story of all.