An Aside – My “History of Music” Project: Part X

A 70-odd page “History of Music” would not be complete without a closing reference to Welsh rock giants, Man, would it?
However, I do think the comment about Pink Floyd’s new concept album “Dark Side of the Moon” – considering the subsequent success and ubiquity of their 1975 opus – makes me appear to be something [...]

An Aside – My “History of Music” Project: Part IX

My fascination for Dutch yodelling/guitar/hammond organ combos knows no bounds, stating that Focus were the first continental group to make a lasting impact. If only Holland was a ‘continent’ eh?
Having recently listed to a Mahavishnu Orchestra album again, I have NO CLUE as to why I would have referred to them as “magic”… unless it [...]

An Aside – My “History of Music” Project: Part VIII

 There’s a ‘taste of my American future’ with my spelling of “realised“, duly marked as incorrect – and quite rightly too – by the teacher.
Shame he didn’t also notice my spelling of philosophy.
That “wild man of borneo” comment could almost be considered racist these days. Maybe it was back then too, and I just didn’t know better?

An Aside – My “History of Music” Project: Part VII

Here’s my piece about “Mod”. Having just read this again, I now wonder if researching this in 1975 gave me my interest  in the genre, or it was solely the responsibility of The Who’s “Quadrophenia” album a few years later?
Admittedly it did take a couple of decades to fully appreciate the Small Faces, even longer [...]

An Aside – My “History of Music” Project: Part VI

Here’s one of the photo pages I compiled from cuttings culled from various music mags.

In case you can’t read the caption under the bottom right photo, I have written “We are supposed to be living in the permissive age now, but look at what was going on in 1956. And they said Woodstock was an orgy“
I also [...]

An Aside – My “History of Music” Project: Part V

Yes, it’s yellow paper. No it hasn’t yellowed over the years. It was yellow form the start, from a large box of foolscap-sized paper by Dad bought for 5 shillings (25p/35¢) from British Rail some 6 or 7 years previous.
Please note gratuitous introduction of Emerson, Lake & Palmer… plus a ludicrous remark commenting that Man [...]

An Aside – My “History of Music” Project: Part IV

Here’s my own piece about Classical music, which upon close reading is little more than ‘lists’ in many places. It looks like my writing style was quite assured nonetheless, even if spelling wasn’t totally on the button. However, please remember that this was hand-typed! There was no desktop publishing with a built in spill-chicken option [...]

An Aside – My “History of Music” Project: Part III

 

Here’s a sample page from Dick’s major contribution to the project. As I said before, I think he wrote everything straight from his head, without recourse (like me) to masses of research.

Here’s the final page of his contribution, complete with our History teacher’s mark and comment.
The teacher was right about jazz and reggae – whilst [...]

An Aside – My “History of Music” Project: Part II

Here’s the inside front cover showing the contents.
One may notice there is a certain ‘favouritism’ still at play with an indexed mention of not only Emerson, Lake & Palmer but the “Welsh Pub Rock Boom” (i.e. Man).
One may further notice that I have a problem spelling “psychedelic“

An Aside – My “History of Music” Project: Part I

This is the back cover. I hope everyone can read it OK?
Please note that in amongst the plethora of big name acts (Presely, The Beatles, Dylan, Zeppelin etc) I have included such other musical giants such as Man, Deke Leonard, and the Bonzo Dog Doo Dah Band. What?
“Rock” was the main ‘fireball’ it would seem [...]

July 4th, 1973

“Keith Emerson on telly – Not Much Kop! Started History Project – History of Music since 1900’s – doing it wiv Dick who’s writing the soul & TM parts”
ELP collectively can ‘do no wrong’ in my 1973 eyes. Keith Emerson by himself evidently can?!
This “History of Music” project is something I was – and still [...]