On Sunday last (during my recent enforced sabbatical away from corfid and a comfortable bed) I was most pleased to be able to catch a splendid documentary on NJN (our local PBS television station)
entitled "The Rockabilly Legends" and subtitlted
"They Called It Rockabilly Long Before It Was Called Rock 'n' Roll"
Amazingly it mnaged to present a fairly comprehensive review of the early days of Rock without once mentioning either Bo Diddley or Bill Haley as it quite rightly concentrated on Sam Phillips' Sun Records enterpise in Memphis TN and the early recordings by Elvis (I have long considered his Sun sessions album to be his best work period) plus of course fellow Sun alumni Johnny Cash and Jerry Lee Lewis.together with some great footage of the two Clovis New Mexico recording stars named Buddy Messrs Holly and Knox.
Also included was some film I had not previousdly seen of Gene "Be Bop A Lula" Vincent and when I got home I looked up Gene's wiki.
I noted that in 1969 in UK he recorded an album for John Peel's Dandelion Records .I knew all about The boring old f..t John Peel a BBC Radio 1 stalwart who delighted in promoting the weirdest non-music he could find including punk
I did indeed display this still from the video of Rod's Maggie May showing what I later discovered was Mr Peel faking playing the mandolin
as posted in a thread at:-
thttp://www.corfid.com/vbb/showthread.php?t=16543
. but I had never heard of his record label
Therefore I checked its own wiki and noticed another fine English singer/songwriter I had long forgotten aboout one Clifford T Ward
I used to have an LP named after his fine song "Home Thought From Abroad"
and was very pleased to find a fine live petformance of it:
IMHO the lyrics are up to Lightfoot standard
the opening line is true classic and never fails to make I larff
"I could be a millionaire if I had the money"
from:-
http://www.sing365.com/music/lyric.n...256E8800128188
the died apparently in 2001 from Pneumonia and having just recovered from a nasty bout of that I sympathise with him
Two other fne songs of his with intelligent use of English words are
his big international hit
Gaye
and the wherefore and why reminiscent song
wherewithal
Please forgive my lengthy post I hope some here enjoy these performnces
Rockabilly Legends and Clifford T Ward
