Departed during 2021

[tango15]

Ian St John, Liverpool Footballer, at the age of 82, which is amoounts to extra time compared to many footballers. Apart from his on-pitch talent he was in a TV series called Saint and Greavsie, which was quite fun until Greavsie took to the pop in a big way.
However, my abiding memory Of Ian St John will be from a church poster, of all things. As a schoolboy, I used to get off the bus next to a church which itself was in the shadow of Liverpool Cathedral. The church had a large billboard outside on which would be some theological question, such as 'Have you found Christ in your heart yet?'

The classic came when the phrase 'What would you do if Christ came to Liverpool?' appeared on the billboard. Within 24 hours someone had written underneath 'Move Ian St John to outside left.'

IRP sir - you were one of football's gentlemen.

[Woody]

One of the most famous goals in the history of Liverpool Football Club

[ribrash]

One of the most famous goals in the history of Liverpool Football Club

+1

[FD2]

Chris Barber aged 90. Watched several times and though more in the British 'Trad' style they were always great entertainment, especially his singer and second wife Ottilie Paterson from Nor'n Ireland who had a great blues voice.

[G-CPTN]

Used to attend CB concerts at Ncle City Hall in the mid 50s.

Had all the records (probably still got them somewhere).

On 12 August 2019, Chris Barber announced his decision to retire (with dementia) after some 70 years of performing.

[FD2]

Taken with my cheap little Kodak 44A at the Regency Ballroom, Bath c 1964:

Great all nighter evening!!

[ian16th]

Memories of Boston Gliderdrome 1956-7.

RIP

[tango15]

Great jazz musician and all-round nice guy by all accounts. One is a big jazz aficionado - rarely listen to anything else and these big names from the old days are disappearing rapidly. RIP and thanks for all the music.

[TheGreenGoblin]

RIP Bunny Wailer (how did I miss this one)...

As one-third of the Wailers with Bob Marley and Peter Tosh, Bunny Wailer, who has died aged 73 of a stroke, was an integral part of the most influential musical group to have emerged from Jamaica. The least feted of the trio, he was in many ways the most respected, for as each of the Wailers pursued solo careers from the mid-1970s onwards – Marley to become reggae’s global evangelist and Tosh its militant conscience – Wailer continued on his quiet path as its spiritual ambassador. His debut album, Blackheart Man, is widely felt to be one of reggae’s highest peaks.

https://www.theguardian.com/music/2021/ ... r-obituary

Played this and my better half, who generally, regards me and my musical tastes with ill disguised contempt, immediately started a reggae dance, which looked a little bit like a slow twerk (or a smirk) and smiled at me...another sign of her misspent youth...



Good synopsis of the man sent by a muso correspondent...

BUNNY WAILER
Blackheart Man
by Richard Haslop

Two members of the Wailers vocal trio, Bob Marley and Peter Tosh, ended up casting such a huge shadow over the rest of the style that the third, Bunny Wailer, is often in danger of being overlooked when talk gets round to the best reggae singers, at least among listeners who prefer their reggae to contain as much rock as roots and righteousness. Yet there’s a compelling case to be made that Bunny Wailer’s solo debut, Blackheart Man, was as good as any album released by either of his former cohorts.

Quitting the group just as the world seemed to be opening up to it, Wailer released no more than a handful of songs in the next couple of years before that first Island label long player finally appeared in 1976, with Tosh, whose own debut, Legalize It, came out the same year, ubiquitous among the backing musicians and especially effective on the simple melodica, and Marley completing the vocal trio for a gorgeous reworking of Bunny’s fantastic repatriation song, Dreamland, which had earlier appeared on a Wailers record.

Blackheart Man reflects, passionately and steadfastly, Wailer’s devotion to the Rastafarian faith, starting with a title track that describes how his own adherence to it has caused him to become just like the outcast his mother always warned him about. By the end of the song, though, the Blackheart Man has become “the wonder of the city”. Wailer’s lissome tenor, once redolent, like many others who plied their vocal trade in reggae trios, of Curtis Mayfield, had gained steel with the years, but was still capable of heartbreaking fragility. In the short, dread-filled intro to Rastaman, though, his declaration that “them kill Lumumba for his own rights, but they can’t kill the Rastaman at all” is so soulfully sated with the certainty of his convictions it’s almost as if he wasn’t able to keep it up, as the song immediately lightens its tread and turns into a heartfelt guide to Rasta living.

Wailer produced the album himself. If his liberal use of Skatalite veteran Tommy McCook’s flute as instrumental colour lends it just a suggestion of airy jazziness, the slightly lazy, apparently even marginally out of tune countryman horns that practically defined reggae’s roots consciousness at the time keep bringing it back to earth, where Wailers drummer Carlton Barrett’s wonderful touch ensures that the earthiness never becomes earthbound.

Fighting Against Conviction, which Wailer also recorded as Battering Down Sentence, refers to his spell in prison some years earlier on marijuana charges and records, with a combination of anger, resignation and a nevertheless indefatigable spirit, and to one of reggae’s most irresistible tunes and rhythms, the difficulty of growing up in a large broken family in the ghetto where “hustling’s the only education I know”.

It’s an indication of Bunny Wailer’s class and skill that Amagideon, introduced by a portentous call and response between keyboards and horns, tackles the far more universal topic of Judgement Day and the end of the world without trivialising it, yet in a way that almost has you looking forward to the drama of it. The wake-up-before-it’s-too-late cock crow vocalisations suggest that Wailer had learned a few tricks from the great one time Wailers producer Lee Perry.

Bide Up, which follows, restates reggae’s debt to American soul music but brings it up to date by adopting the more sophisticated feel of ‘70s Philly soul, though without ever losing its reggae heart.

Blackheart Man closes with an eight-minute version of This Train, which not only roots the album in the musical past, but broadens its spiritual, cultural and political scope considerably as the gospel standard is ecumenicised by combining specifically Rastafarian lyrics and the ancient, mystical nyabinghi drumming that provides its raggedly insistent pulse with wailing blues harmonica and backing vocals torn straight from the belly of the Baptist church or some other similar place of African American worship at the southern end of the United States.

If Wailer’s subsequent releases never quite attained Blackheart Man’s stature as a classic of its kind – few albums ever do - records like Struggle and Protest continued to chip away compellingly at the status quo, while the rather prosaic title of Bunny Wailer Sings The Wailers explains exactly what it does without giving any indication of the quality to be found within.

[CharlieOneSix]

"No, no, no, no....Yes". Trevor Peacock, who played Jim Trott in the BBC's lightweight comedy "The Vicar of Dibley", has died from a dementia related illness at the age of 89. Apart from playing comedy parts he was a Shakesperian actor and was very musical, writing the lyrics to many songs including Mrs. Brown, You've Got a Lovely Daughter by Herman's Hermits, Made You by Adam Faith and Billy Fury's Stick Around. He recorded his own song in 1961 -"I Didn't Figure On Him (To Come Back)".

[TheGreenGoblin]

RIP Lou Ottens. Inventor of the casette tape.

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2021/ ... es-aged-94

[ian16th]

This funeral will test the local Covid restrictions

[G-CPTN]

Seems like he succumbed to Covid19.

[CharlieOneSix]

Murray Walker, F1 TV commentator has died at 97.

[Wodrick]

Sad, good knock though.

[FD2]

Great to listen to Walker's commentaries and occasional 'funnies'. He was very good humoured when he had his leg pulled about them afterwards.

https://www.youtube.com/results?search_ ... st+moments

[ian16th]

RIP that man.

[Undried Plum]

Yup.

[TheGreenGoblin]

Murray Walker, a giant amongst the world of motor racing commentators.

A gentleman man, and surely one of the most decent people in the world of sport...

[TheGreenGoblin]

Vale, the man with the muscle in his head. RIP Marvelous Marvin Hagler

https://www.theguardian.com/sport/2021/ ... t-champion