I never saw Solomon Burke perform live, but he’s influenced my appreciation of music as much as anyone. I got to him in 1964, by way of the Rolling Stones, who delivered their versions of ‘Everybody Needs Somebody To Love’ on their second album, and ‘Cry To Me’ on their third. I’d already learned that [...]
IF YOU LIKE THIS YOU’LL ALSO LIKE… SOME THOUGHTS ON MUSICAL TAXONOMY, PART ONE
Musicians resist categorisation. The line ‘There’s only two kinds of music, good music and bad music’ is a commonplace. So is the epigram attributed to Louis Armstrong: “All music is folk music – I ain’t never heard a horse sing.” Neither is a very helpful thought when you walk into HMV looking for a record [...]
