2011 has barely registered with most of us and already the music world has lost some interesting characters. Making news headlines everywhere was the death of 70s tunesmith Gerry Rafferty. You may not recognize his name but inevitably you know one of his bigger hit songs - either Stealers' Wheel's infectiously catchy, "Stuck In The Middle With You" (used, I am told, in a scene of stunningly graphic violence in the movie "Reservoir Dogs") or Rafferty's solo masterpiece, "Baker Street." "Stuck In The Middle..." gave us one of the most memorable choruses of any pop song, "Clowns to the left of me, jokers to the right - here I am, stuck in the middle with you." "Baker Street" seemed like a lost track from Steely Dan's phenomenal album of the previous year, "Aja," lushly produced with soaring saxophones and a cutting guitar solo, but with a low-key vocal that suggested a man daydreaming of possibilities while walking down the city street of the title. Rafferty wrote the song in the midst of legal disputes over his departure from Stealers' Wheel and that kind of turmoil seemed to dog his career. Worse, he turned to drink to ease the turmoil and his death was the result of liver failure. While we don't have any CDs of Rafferty's here at DPPL,
"Baker Street" can be found on four CD collections in our stacks - proof that a great song lives on and on.
A couple of less famous but no less interesting musicians have joined the heavenly choir within the last few weeks. What can I possibly say about Captain Beefheart, aka Don Van Vliet. If you haven't ever heard any Captain Beefheart, it is not for the faint of heart but if you're a brave listener, check it out. Beefheart walked away from the music world in the 1980s and focused on painting from that point forward - visit
The Captain Beefheart Radar Station for a glimpse and an earful of what this eccentric, truly bizarre artist created. Beefheart died in mid-December 2010 from complications of multiple sclerosis. The
Up Sifter blog has listed links to dozens of tributes written upon his passing.
Rolling Stone listed its 10 Beefheart favorites - missing from the list is my favorite, "The Blimp," available on the album "Trout Mask Replica." I'm sorry to report we don't have that album at DPPL, but you can hear
some Beefheart selections on the CDs listed here or
borrow "Trout Mask Replica" from one of our neighboring libraries. You may love it, you may hate it, but you will definitely have an opinion.
Finally, an even more obscure name, Mick Karn, bass player for the English band Japan. With rare exceptions, the bass player is often the forgotten band member - nobody will forget Paul McCartney, for example, and you may not realize that Queen's bassist, John Deacon, wrote many of their biggest hits. Mick Karn, for fans of Japan, brought one instantly recognizable and indispensable element to the band's sound with the introduction of the fretless bass. That fluid, loose backbone provided the perfect foil to singer David Sylvian's crooning vibrato and the synthesized flutes and drums that made Japan sound, well, vaguely "Asian." The band never clicked in the States but had cult popularity in England, other parts of Europe, and yes, Japan. If you like Roxy Music and Duran Duran or if you want to impress your friends with something unusual at your next dance party, put on some Japan.
See what DPPL and neighboring libraries have available - I particularly like the songs "The Art of Parties," "Visions of China," "Still Life In Mobile Homes," "Ghosts," (quoted as today's post title) and "Gentlemen Take Polaroids."
