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Music books, mystery and the feeling of loss moment

by Mal Smith

Looking through the music books arrayed across my various bookcases - there are more books here than I had realised - recently got me thinking. Picking some out, to see how I relate to them today, two things strike me. There are what I’d call the cornerstones and then there are the ‘feeling of loss moment’ books, as I think of them. And there's some overlap.

The Parallel Musiverse

 by Mal Smith

I got to wondering recently – what did I listen to before I began working as a music PR in 1994? I have always thought the 1980s are misunderstood or misrepresented. There am I, British, in my late teens and early twenties. Yet the music charts of the time for me felt disconnected, at a distance from life. I could not relate to most of the chart music. To me it tended to sound aloof, clunky, all wrong. The chart music of the 1970s, by contrast I had mostly rather liked, for its seeming lack of calculation and its greater diversity. I guess my tastes just did not align with the 1980s. The mainstream music, MTV, the films, and the comedy seemed mostly unremarkable. As luck would have it, several things happened to music, none of which I expected: the 1980s saw a resurgence of American Blues and Soul, Cajun and Zydeco, and the beginnings of alt.country; and mostly UK record companies began to release spellbinding collections of the best previously unreleased or hard to find American music. The musical resurgence turned out to be a revelation. There was so much great stuff emerging. There was no need to be interested in chart music, even though chart music was hard to avoid. The sounds available to me were varied, though of course I knew there was even more out there beyond my knowledge than I had the time or the money for. A third surprising thing happened. After a slow start, the new CD format did not restrict the sort of music you could buy. Despite much skepticism, the CD turned out to be generally a good thing, aside from the shoddy mastering, or lack of remastering, of some major label albums and the high cost of some, but not all, CDs. There was something intangible in the air that seemed to bring it all together. Making a list of the best of these record releases today for the first time, looking through my collection – I don’t know why I’ve not done this before – I've realised or remembered their sheer number, and that not only did I buy these records, but also I was able to witness many of the artists play live in London in the coming years. Strangely enough, I have never thought about it quite like this before. Putting it simply, the records I bought determined the music that I went to see played live. This may seem obvious, but there had to be the inclination and the opportunity, or maybe the serendipity. So this is what I call The Parallel Musiverse of the 1980s. It led me over time to see a wide range of artists and styles live on stage, just for example: Johnny Adams, Bobby Bland, Booker T. & The M.G.s, James Brown, Solomon Burke, John Cale, Calexico, James Carr, Vic Chesnutt, Otis Clay, The Robert Cray Band, Albert Collins, Dr. John, Honeyboy Edwards, Eddie Floyd, Canray Fontenot, Giant Sand, Dana Gillespie, The Glitterhouse Revue, Buddy Guy, John Lee Hooker, B.B. King, Eddie LeJeune, Magic Slim & The Teardrops, The Malaco Blues Revue, Delbert McClinton, D. L. Menard, Ann Peebles, Dan Penn, Dan Penn & Spooner Oldham, Queen Emily, Steve Riley & The Mamou Playboys, Otis Rush, Percy Sledge, Jo–El Sonnier, Mavis Staples, Pops Staples, Koko Taylor, Irma Thomas, The Walkabouts, Junior Wells, Wilco, U. P. Wilson, Neil Young & Crazy Horse, and many more besides. I even got to work with some of this music, for example with: Bobby Bland, John Cale, Dana Gillespie, Glitterhouse Records, Magic Slim, Malaco Records, Dan Penn & Spooner Oldham, Queen Emily, The Walkabouts, Junior Wells, and U. P. Wilson. Others that I would like to have seen, I missed, often because they had stopped touring or had sadly passed away. My favourite London music venues up to 1992 were The Carnavon Castle in Camden, and the Hare & Hounds, the Weavers Arms, and the T&C 2, all in nearby Islington – these were on my doorstep, a short bus ride away. Plus the Town & Country Club in Kentish Town and the Borderline in Soho. I miss them. My favourite records shops were Rhythm Records and Rock On, both in Camden Town. I miss them too. There’s one other thing I really miss and that is jukeboxes. The jukebox track that I miss the most is Baker Street. What was I listening to in those days before I went into the music business? The records listed below were released 1976-1992. This is my selection of Blues & Soul, archive releases, sundry live recordings, Cajun & Zydeco, and alt.country. And just a few Reggae and Jazz gems. This is representative of what I was listening to in The Parallel Musiverse…

Becoming a music PR 

I became a music PR in the dizzying 1990s, relieved the 1980s were over. The world was something like this at the time… things look promising as the West versus USSR Cold War comes to an end. The way forward seems clear. The West is even more powerful than before. Yet the bad decisions of the early to mid 1990s are numerous. Some I recognised at the time, some I didn’t.

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UK/Europe

Music books, mystery and the feeling of loss moment

by Mal Smith

The Parallel Musiverse

by Mal Smith

Becoming a music PR

by Mal Smith

Welcome to Delta Extra

The place for our extra news

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