HOWLIN' WOLF - SHAKE IT FOR ME (1964)

From the year nineteen hundred and sixty four, this is Howlin' Wolf.

FEBRUARY PLAYLIST

This month we’ll let the artists speak for themselves. Some do it better than others.

1. Blind Willie Johnson – “You’re Gonna Need Somebody On Your Bond” (1930)
“Now its way after midnight, when death come a-creepin' in your room / You're gonna need somebody on your bond.”

2. Baron Lee and the Mills Blue Rhythm Band – “Reefer Man” (1932)
“Oh, have you ever met that funny reefer man? / Have you ever met that funny reefer man?/ If he trades you dimes for nickels / And calls watermelons pickles / Then you know you’re talking to that reefer man.”

3. Sonny Clark – “Cool Struttin’” (1958)
Pop goes the weasel.

4. Bob Dylan – “Talkin’ Bear Mountain Picnic Massacre Blues” (1962)
“Six thousand people tryin' t' kill each other / Dogs a-barkin', cats a-meowin' / Women screamin', fists a-flyin', babies cryin', / Cops a-comin', me a-runnin'. / Maybe we just better call off the picnic.”

5. Funkadelic – “Mommy, What’s A Funkadelic?” (1970)
“If you will suck my soul / I will lick your funky emotions.”

6. Swamp Dogg – “Sam Stone” (1972)
“There’s a hole in Daddy’s arm, where all the money goes.”

7. Johnny Thunders – “Subway Train” (1978)
“I can’t ever understand / Why my life’s been cursed, poisoned, condemned.”

8. The Cure – “Inbetween Days” (1985)
“Yesterday I got so old, I felt like I could die / Yesterday I got so old, it made me want to cry.”

9. The Campbell Stokes Sunshine Recorder – “She Looks Good In The Sun” (2009)
“Fifteen sides of orange paper, covered in red ink / It looks good but, it sure is hard to read”.

10. Gil Scott-Heron – “I’m New Here” (2010)
“Met a woman in a bar / Told her I was hard to get to know / And near impossible to forget / She said I had an ego on me / The size of Texas.”

BOB DYLAN ON CANVAS at the HALCYON GALLERY

“Someday, everything is gonna be diff’rent, When I paint my masterpiece”.
– Bob Dylan, When I Paint My Masterpiece, 1971.

How does one separate art from the artist? Is it even possible or can art only be judged objectively (whatever “art” and “judge” mean) if seen or heard with no preloaded prejudices or preconceptions; if experienced totally new? Or do you need the back story? If given a tape of a bloke fumbling with a guitar and howling excruciatingly, and told it is Syd Barrett, Skip Spence or Roky Erickson it’ll be given some context and assessed accordingly. Given the same tape and told it’s by Joe Scroggins from Scunthorpe, it may simply be dismissed as shit. And what if you swop them over like the old switch trick of giving experts finger paintings by children and monkeys?

Bob Dylan’s paintings present this problem. If hung in a seaside B&B they may at best not be given a second thought, and at worst dismissed as gaudy cack knocked up by the senile cat-loving owner harbouring artistic pretentions. Hanging in a prestigious Mayfair gallery with his practised signature in the bottom corner they’re looked at through very different eyes. I mean, these are Bob Dylan’s paintings. Would I hang one on my wall? If I had a Mediterranean villa perhaps it would look nice, but mainly for what it is; for the possession, not for much else. Hmm, maybe this separation thing isn’t so hard after all.

Bobcats will be eager to interpret the work and pack meaning into them. Bob’s nobody’s fool and doesn’t reveal much. The pieces entitled “Train Tracks” display an obvious theme, stretching back to his self-mythologising days of being a Woody Guthrie lonesome hobo, scuffling along dusty railroads in one-horse towns, jumping passing freight trains. Even without that association they are the most interesting works but their very Bobness is reflected in the price. Yours for £450,000. Yep, half a million quid. How does it arrive at that price? Does Bob pluck a number from under the red sky? Does Johnny Ball? Do the gallery? Or if a Ronnie Wood abomination goes for X, a Dylan must be worth X times Y?

Other pieces depict a truck stop outside a diner, a fat woman in a pub, two ladies on a bed, a cafe, some flowers, and a view from a window. Stylistically they’ve been compared - according to the Halcyon Gallery spiel - to Toulouse Lautrec and Edgar Degas. If squinting in a poor light through your fingers whilst wearing sunglasses after a heavy night out, they do a bit.

The value, artistically and monetary, of “art” is been philosophised and debated by far bigger brains than mine. Bob Dylan has no equal in popular music, his Chronicles was beautifully written, his Theme Time Radio Hour is the best thing on the wireless, and he even managed the near-impossible feat of making a decent Christmas album. He’s got everything he needs, he’s an artist, but he has yet to paint his masterpiece. For us mere mortals, it’s good to know even he has limits.

Bob Dylan On Canvas is at the Halcyon Gallery, 24 Bruton Street, London, W1 until 10th April 2010. Admission is free but they won’t let you in if dressed like a hobo.

JAMES BROWN - MOTHER POPCORN (1969)

This is as good a James Brown television appearance as you’ll ever see. The last minute and a half of JB and Maceo Parker going head-to-head is incredible. Enjoy.

LOST ELATION by JOSEPH RIDGWELL

Joe Ridgwell’s Lost Elation is an object of such outrageous beauty one feels it should be handled with felt gloves, sat on a pillow of the finest Egyptian silk and have the pages turned by the breath from a soft sigh.

Kilmog Press are responsible for taking a collection of grubby impoverished waifs and strays from London’s battle scarred East End (and New Zealand) and rehousing them within such elegant and luxurious splendour: hand printed pages and unique dust jacket, hardback cover and limited to the criminally minuscule number of 50.

Beauty is not only page deep either, as whilst Joe’s poems or characters don’t fit the conventional stereotype, his art and skill is to reveal beauty lurking in unlikely places: a confused woman in park of drunks; in doomed kids playing football on council estates; in the triumphant aftermath of bloody encounters; and in two lovers shagging beneath the scream of midnight (yes, I'm thinking The Jam's "That's Entertainment" here). It’s in these places Joe’s search for the lost elation bears richly rewarding fruit. Seek and ye shall find.

Lost Elation by Joseph Ridgwell is published by Kilmog Press. Write to them at kilmogpress@hotmail.com for details.

BABYSHAMBLES at the BLUES KITCHEN

- They turn up then?
- Yep.
- What state was Peter in?
- Not bad. Fully functioning but in no mood for banter. Didn’t speak all night.
- Were they any good?
- Were okay. They’ve played better and been worse; and played worse and been better. Was a middling one.
- What did they do?
- Opened with What Katie Did; You Talk; Baddie’s Boogie; then a couple of newies.
- What were they like?
- Promising on first hearing. One was something about a stranger and had a sparkly Orange Juice feel and the other was a short scratchy punky blast almost like Public Image Limited.
- Blimey.
- Quite. Then was There She Goes.
- Oh, I like that one: “I caught a glimpse of your white plimsolls/ Twisting and turning to Northern Soul”.
- Yeah. Delivery got a few heads bobbing; Back From The Dead; a spiralling newie; Time For Heroes.
- “Did you see the stylish kids in the riot/ Shuffled up like mods/ Set the night on fire”. Cool. Were the kids rioting? Pete lose his hat?
- No, they were pretty subdued. Hat remained in place. I’m not sure that’s how that song goes anyway.
- Sounds like it to me. The rest of the band?
- Drew and Adam did a sterling job as usual, particularly Adam who had the shits all day. Mik looked like shit.
- What next?
- Unbilotitled; Carry On Up The Morning; Side Of The Road; Unstookietitled; Beg, Steal or Borrow; Killamangiro.
- “Ooh-oh-oh-Ohoooowoooh”.
- That’s the baby. Then Albion and another new one – a slowie – to finish.
- Right. How’d you remember all that?
- Was texting myself notes.
- Bit sad innit?
- Yeah, was gonna write a review.
- Why didn’t you?
- Watch it sunshine.

LOU DONALDSON at RONNIE SCOTT'S

Not for the first time, alto-sax legend Lou Donaldson has to put up with a couple of off-their-head geezers gate crashing his dressing room. He’s just finished the last of his stint at Ronnie Scott’s with a Friday midnight show and at 83 you’d think could do with some well earned rest but, as ever, is the perfect gentleman, happy to slouch back in his chair and field slurred gibberish from two imbeciles as his band look on with wry amusement. Or it may be pity.

The last time in London he had Dr Lonnie Smith on Hammond and they served up a soul-jazz “Alligator Boogaloo” style set. Tonight he’s in a more bebop kind of mood but it makes little odds. The man is phenomenal. My heart sinks initially when he starts with the old standard “Summertime” but he and his excellent combo (organ, guitar, drums) soon cook up an irresistible groove. I’m not qualified to get all technical about jazz playing but there’s something about Donaldson’s records and his live shows that get me like no other. And with his hangdog face and neat line in crackly patter, he has charisma oozing out his pores and the crowd eating out of what must be a sweaty hand.

I don’t know all the numbers (and the grain and the grape have wiped some of it) but recognise the ballad “Laura” and am delighted to hear “Gravy Train” as I have that CD with me which Lou graciously signs before we leave him in peace. If you come back to London Lou, we’ll be back too. You have been warned my friend.