LINER NOTE HEAVEN! On 4th July 2001 Jill & I flew to California to spend some time with our friends Debra & Andrew Teton in Santa Barbara and watch a few fireworks on the beach – oh, and catch a Spy Boy gig at Gaineys Winery. We also met Iris Rudeseal for the first time and I became firm friends with Emmy’s drummer, Brady Blade. Hazel and I had nearly met him the previous August in Scotland - he had red hair (well ginger actually) in those days and we couldn’t be sure it was him. In any case why would he want to speak with us? As it turned out Brady is one of the nicest guys you could hope to meet and he later introduced me to the music of the Indigo Girls with whom he was touring that year. If you remind me later I’ll tell you about the hilarious night Jill & I went to see them at Concorde II in Brighton. I was desperate to visit Borders on State Street and pick up some Ricky Nelson re-issues, which by some strange quirk of fate had been released to coincide with our visit. It turned out that Andrew knew Ricky’s cousin who regularly regaled him with stories about life with Ricky around the swimming pool (which had since been cemented over!). But then Andrew also bought a wicker rocking chair at Tule Zevon’s garage sale, little knowing that it had previously been occupied by Jordan, son of Warren! That’s the kind of backward friends I have. Back in December 1999 Hazel and I had visited the Tetons for the first time (they had spent the previous 4th July with us in Upper Beeding) and I was proffered the opportunity to present my Millennium Project to Andrew, Jay and Russ – oh, and catch Emmy’s Landmine Concert at UCSB. Andrew took me into Borders to have a beak at their CDs, DVDs and books. You have to bear in mind that in those days there wasn’t a Borders in every shopping mall in the UK and the store was like a Mecca to me, a re-run of a recurrent dream where I discovered all of these albums containing previously unissued Everly Brothers tracks (and in 2005 that dream did come true!). On the way out I picked up a cheap copy of John Irving’s novel ‘A Widow For One Year’ not knowing that Jill had already ordered it for me for Christmas. Part 1 of this wonderful book has since been made into an equally wonderful movie – ‘The Door In The Floor’ with Jeff Bridges & Kim Basinger. Back to 2001. (Incredibly we had left Frank & Tom in kennels – we’d never be apart from our dogs for that long these days.) I persuaded the guy in Borders to let me have the promotional flyer that was separating the re-issues from the rest of the Ricky Nelson catalogue, I could probably sell that on eBay today. We returned to Andrew’s house in Paseo del Refugio, and while we waited for him to brew the tea, usually a 60-minute episode, I pawed my way through the CD booklets. When Andrew eventually returned from the kitchen with two cups of luke-warm liquid he purred “Ah, I see you’ve been in liner note heaven”. Hence the title of this chapter in my life. It’s tough enough being the wife or girlfriend of an Everly fan – just when you think the old man can pay off the mortgage and slip into graceful retirement he starts over, only this time it’s mega-bucks in huge great chunks. If anyone had told me back in 1985 that, come the ‘90s I would be buying my record collection all over again I would have laughed at them. Thank God for Erik James at Warner Music in London who’s happy to share his every fantasy with me! By 2000 I had envisaged that it would all be over, the collection would sit there in whatever order I had deemed appropriate for that particular week and I’d occasionally even play some of it. Well this particular week, the last week of a pretty shitty 2005, I have a special section of digitally re-mastered CDs, all issued during the 21st Century and covering a period of musical history from (circa) 1955 to 2005. Some them are original albums and ‘2-fers’, with or without bonus tracks, some of them are ‘Essential Collections’, some of them are part of a boxed set. And the 23 tracks on this compilation represent just about the best damned music you will ever hear. Let me introduce you to my credentials: The Battle of New Orleans (special version cut for England) – Johnny Horton from the CD ‘The Spectacular Johnny Horton’. When I first put this on the CD-player Jill naturally thought it was Lonnie Donegan who we had met at Albert Lee’s London house on New Year’s Eve 1979. I became a huge fan of Johnny Horton in 1960 when they released ‘North To Alaska’ as a single. I probably hadn’t realised that he had just been killed in a car accident and certainly didn’t know that he had been married to Hank Williams’ widow – I just loved the music. This is part of the American Milestones collection, classic Columbia albums re-mastered with previously unissued bonus tracks. When It’s Springtime In Alaska (It’s Forty Below) – Johnny Cash from the CD ‘Orange Blossom Special’. This is in the same series of CDs and was very special to me as, in 1965, it was the first Johnny Cash album I bought (in mono). I had heard the wonderful Charlie McCoy harmonica on the title track and it may also have been Johnny’s versions of Dylan songs that attracted me to it. But this track, which had also been a hit for Johnny Horton back in 1959, was the icing on the cake and it was almost certainly the first time I’d taken any notice of June Carter. These days Jill and I do a Wayne’s World to it in the car! Bleeker Street (demo) – from the CD ‘Wednesday Morning 3 A.M.’, part of ‘The Columbia Studio Recordings 1964-1970’ CD Box set by Simon & Garfunkel. This track is a gem. In the original sleeve notes Art Garfunkel confessed that “Bleeker Street (finished October 1963) was too much for me at first. The song is highly intellectual, the symbolism extremely challenging.” And up to that time we had thought that pop music was trivial fun! That album included the original Simon & Garfunkel recording of ‘The Sound Of Silence’, before Joe South added his eclectic electric guitar, and the whole re-mastered thing sounds just wonderful, to think that we were content to put up with scratchy vinyl, John Benfield! ‘A Little Bit Of Rain’ – from the CD ‘Bleeker & MacDougal’ by Fred Neil, part of a 2-fer with Martin & Neil’s ‘Tear Down The Walls’. If that track was a gem this one is pure perfection! By 1964 Fred Neil was a Greenwich Village legend having written ‘Candy Man’ with Beverly Ross in the Brill Building 3 years earlier. This was his first solo album without Vince Martin, was produced by Paul Rothchild (who went on to produce the Everlys ‘Stories We Could Tell’), and also featured a very young John Sebastian on harmonica. Of course Fred would be haunted for the remainder of his tragically short life by the ghost of ‘Midnight Cowboy’ and Harry Nilsson’s wonderful ‘Everybody’s Talkin’ – John Schlesinger’s choice instead of Nilsson’s own ‘I Guess the Lord Must Be In New York City’. Do we think Fred was grateful? ‘Darlin’ Companion’ – previously unreleased solo demo by John Sebastian, included on the CD re-issue ‘Hums Of The Lovin’ Spoonful’. This song has been a wonderful companion over the past 40-odd years and Johnny Cash included a great duet with June on the ‘San Quentin’ album (also re-issued as part of the American Milestones series). John is such a great talent and the four Spoonful re-issues are an essential part of my collection as well as his solo stuff and his contributions to Gordon Lightfoot and Everly sessions. This album alone included classics such as ‘Rain On The Roof’, Nashville Cats’ and ‘Summer In The City’ – mmmmmmmmmmmm!!!!!!!!! ‘Hey That’s No way To Say Goodbye’ – track 4, CD1 of the 2-CD ‘The Essential Leonard Cohen’. Of course I was a Leonard Cohen fan in the ‘60s but when I shared a bed-sit in Acton with John Montgomery it was already 1968, we were into Simon & Garfunkel’s ‘Bookends’ album and actually felt pretty good about life. I got into his music more seriously when he teamed up with Jennifer Warnes and recorded some of the live ‘Field Commander Cohen’ album at The Dome Theatre in Brighton on 15th December 1979. Of course they included this song but the original still sounds wonderful. More from Jenny later! ‘Games People Play’ – from the Joe South album ‘Introspect’, part of a 2-fer CD with ‘Don’t It Make You Want To Go Home’ on Raven. I bought this album on vinyl from the second-hand shop across the road from the Corn Exchange in Brighton. One of the partners later got murdered, just for being gay. Joe South is such an enigmatic talent, his guitar has graced Simon & Garfunkel and Bob Dylan albums and his songs have been covered by everyone from Billie Joe Spears through to Crispin Mills’ Cooler Shaker.