Another cassette

Another cassette I found is Volume 1 of a two volume collection of 28 classic rock numbers. I don't think I ever owned Volume 2. I bought it in a sale and Volume 2 was missing then.

Volume 2 contained T Rex/Ride a white swan, The Who/My generation, Peter Frampton/Show me the way. Steve Harley and Cockney Rebel/Make Me Smile, Canned Heat/Let's Work Together, Fleetwood Mac/Albatross – which I would have loved (the rest are okay - Julie Driscoll, Brian Auger & The Trinity/This Wheel's On Fire, Pink Floyd/Money, Dire Straits/Lady Writer, Lou Reed/ Walk On The Wild Side, Lynyrd Skynyrd/Freebird. Meatloaf/Dead Ringer For Love, Far Corporation/Stairway To Heaven, Deep Purple/Smoke On The Water).

If I remember rightly I bought the cassette for Free/My Brother Jake plus Derek And The Dominos/Layla, Thin Lizzy/Waiting For An Alibi, Status Quo/Caroline, Santana She's Not There, Electric Light Orchestra/Roll Over Beethoven, Jethro Tull/Living In The Past, Rod Stewart/Maggie May, Black Sabbath/Paranoid. I'm alsop happy enough with Mott The Hoople/All The Young Dudes, The Jimi Hendrix Experience/Voodoo Chile, Cream/Strange Brew , Rainbow/Since You Been Gone/Traffic/Paper Sun.

In some ways this is a broad range of rock and shows what good stuff was going down back in the late sixties and early seventies. I currently have on my ipod and listen to exactly half (ie 14) of these tracks.

My Brother Jake

We heard this week of the death of Andy Fraser co-writer of my favourite pop track of all time, My Brother Jake. This is a live version from the time (Fraser is on piano). For a more modern (much less satisfying) version try https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tP4i8s76W4U

My Brother Jake (again)

Free's My Brother Jake. This wasn't on Youtube when I looked the other week.

Luvly Jub'lee

As some of you may know I turned 50 today (like Morrisey and John Sopel). Thanks for all your greetings (cards real and online, phone calls, Facebook messages, etc). I had lovely presents (smellies and cheese and chocs and socks, shirt, money, etc). I especially appreciated The London Encyclopedia from the family - a brilliant buy. My father-in-law wrote me a poem and Rhodri reworked My Brother Jake (My father dad!) to great effect. I think I had four lots of happy birthday sung (from Aber, Cardiff, at home and in church). People are so kind.

Fifty, of course, is pretty old and means most of your life is probably over. So far its been 25 years preparation for the ministry, 25 years of on the job training and now hopefully my best 25 years of service. We'll see. I'm very thankful to God to be alive, to have been converted and to be wanting to serve.

My Brother Jake

My Brother Jake by Free

Best ofs 8

I first heard Free as a boy near the end of Junior School. We had this tradition of miming to songs for the Christmas party and one group chose to do All Right Now, which has a great riff but is rather aggressive for my liking. I later heard My Brother Jake, which another boy owned. I eventually persuaded him to sell it to me and for the last 20 years or so it has been my favourite song of all time. I'm not sure quite why. I've tried to analyse it and all I can come up with is that it builds and may be the mellotron is doing something subliminal.

I always wanted a copy of The Free Story LP but never got to own one. More recently I bought this best of CD of 14 tracks All Right Now. There is a certain sameness about several of the other tracks, which is not necessarily a criticism. I know little about the group but I always feel somehow that a more upbeat and vocally gifted Paul Rogers is singing to the guitarist Paul Kossoff (who eventually committed suicide) and trying to help him on. An attempted ordering of faves would be

1. My Brother Jake
2. All Right Now
3. Little Bit of Love
4. Wishing Well
5. Fire and Water
6. Travellin' in Style
7. Come Together in the Morning