Mountain top (Paul McCartney) (LP 4647 - 4649)

Paul McCartney  The Boys of Dungeon Lane (Vinyl, Capitol Records, 2026) **** 

Joni Mitchell  Miles of Aisles  (Vinyl, Asylum Records, 1974, 2022 reissue) ****  

Joni Mitchell  Rolling Thunder Revue (Vinyl, Rhino Records, 2025) ****  

Genre: Pop, folk rock 

Places I remember: JB Hi Fi

Fab, and all the other pimply hyperboles: Home To Us (Macca)

Gear costume: Both Sides Now (Joni)

They loom large in his legend (The Album Collection playlists): Part 1; Part 2; Part 3; Part 4; Part 5; Part 6; Part 7

Active compensatory factors: These three albums came from a recent spending spree at JB Hi Fi during their 20% sale. That takes away some of the pain of paying nearly $90 for a new slice of vinyl (that was the price on the new McCartney album).

There aren't too many artists still around who I make a special hour journey to the record store for, to buy their latest album on the day of release. Macca is certainly one. His latest is The Boys of Dungeon Lane. The boys he refers to are his mates back in Liverpool's Speke district, where he grew up.

The whole album has a lovely nostalgic vibe about it - from the cover illustration that leans on a street sign from the Speke district, to an inner sleeve with copious photos of John Paul George and Ringo plus others (such as Brian, Mike McGear, and Neil Aspinall), to Ringo's appearance on one track - Home to Us, a real standout. I'd love to hear a complete album of songs like this - with both of them playing and singing up a fab storm.

It also sounds absolutely current thanks to Andrew Watt's presence and Paul's brilliance (he plays most of the instruments and obviously is the main writer). Yes, his vocal abilities as he approaches his mid-eighties aren't what they used to be, naturally, but he still sounds recognisable and full of vitality. This won't be his last studio album, I'm sure.

Joni Mitchell released her first ever live album, Miles of Aisles, in 1974. For some bizarre reason, it's taken me until 2026 to buy a copy. Bizarre because I love Joni and I've always wanted a copy of this album. When it was re-released four years ago it was priced well above my comfort level. so when I spied a new copy for $50 (with JD's 20% reduction) it was time to finally make the purchase.

Tom Scott's jazz fusion band (LA Express) are a perfect foil for Joni at this point, in between Court and Spark and The Hissing of Summer Lawns. That is balanced by half of the album being Joni alone with her guitar - so, you get the best of both worlds.

Joni's Rolling Thunder Revue was a Record Store Day album that is of historic significance. She hitched aboard Dylan's Rolling Thunder Revue and this album includes material she was working on for Hejira (my favourite Joni Mitchell album). Two reasons why I enjoyed the album immensely.

Where do they all belong? Full credit to the delights of JPM and Record Store Day releases!

The circle game (Joni Mitchell) (LP 3226 - 3238)

Joni Mitchell  Clouds (CD, Reprise Records, 1969) ****  

Joni Mitchell  Ladies Of The Canyon (Vinyl, Reprise Records, 1970) *****  

Joni Mitchell  Both Sides, Now - Live in London 1970 (2CD, Universal Audio, 2022) **** 

Joni Mitchell  Blue (CD, Reprise Records, 1971) ***** 

Joni Mitchell  For The Roses (CD, Asylum Records, 1972) ***** 

Joni Mitchell  Court And Spark (CD, Asylum Records, 1974) ***** 

Joni Mitchell  The Hissing Of Summer Lawns (Vinyl, Asylum Records, 1975) ****

Joni Mitchell  Hejira (Vinyl and CD, Asylum Records, 1976) *****

Joni Mitchell  Shadows And Light (Vinyl and CD, Asylum Records, 1980) ***

Joni Mitchell  Wild Things Run Fast (Vinyl, Geffen Records, 1982) ****

Joni Mitchell  Dog Eat Dog (Vinyl, Geffen Records, 1985) **

Joni Mitchell  Chalk Mark In A Rain Storm  (Vinyl, Geffen Records, 1988) ***

Joni Mitchell  Shine (CD, Hear Music, 2007) ****

Genre: Folk-rock, pop 

Places I remember: Fives, Chaldon Books and Records, JB Hi-Fi, Spellbound Wax Company, 

Fab, and all the other pimply hyperboles: Song For Sharon (Hejira)

Gear costume: For Free (Ladies Of The Canyon)

They loom large in his legend (The Album Collection playlists): Part 1; Part 2; Part 3; Part 4; Part 5

Active compensatory factors: I am not a Joni completist, but I am a fan. That means I have 13 of her albums, and there are some gaps. It all started with The Last Waltz and her spot doing Coyote in the film. That performance is lodged firmly in my brain.

Her second album was Clouds (I don't have her David Crosby produced debut) and it is glorious. It's a sparse sounding album - just Joni's superb vocals and guitar accompaniment. This is the one with Chelsea Morning, and Both Sides Now.

Special mention goes to the cover painting by Joni - wow! She captures herself precisely - the emotion in the eyes, the demure lips, her knowing innocence, the moody idealised landscape. Extraordinary!

A cassette of Ladies Of The Canyon was the first album I bought after the Coyote revelation. I played it a lot and absorbed all the songs but I didn't have much of a context in those days.

Now listening to them in order I can hear/see what a leap it was from Clouds. It feels so much more confident. Piano, cello and some horns now provide some additional texture, but the star on show remains Joni - her voice, guitar and songs are just outstanding. Her first 5-star classic.

Each song is special on Ladies Of The Canyon, but this is the one with For Free, Conversation, For Willy (this is her Graham Nash period), Big Yellow Taxi, Circle Game, and Woodstock.

The Live in London set is from the BBC archives. CD 1 is from a broadcast on 9 October 1970 with a couple of additions from The Johnny Cash Show. CD 2 is Joni and James Taylor later in October 1970 (it includes three songs from James). Given there's only a few weeks between the performances, only four songs are in each set - California, For Free, The Gallery, My Old Man. 

The sound is pristine throughout - like she's in the room with you and you're part of the rapt audience. Each concert is a great summary of those first three albums. I really enjoy these CDs because Joan, and James on CD 2, are chatty and full of confidence in their abilities. They were also a romantic item - something that fueled elements of Blue, as well as her relationships with Graham Nash and others.

Blue was another leap forward, and only a year after Ladies Of The Canyon had appeared. It features many of those songs that were in her set lists around that time (Live in London for instance). The heavy hitters are California, This Flight Tonight, River, Carey.

For The Roses is a fully assured folk-rock album. It has an overall sound that lulls you into a false sense of security, but Joni doesn't dwell in cozy places. Behind the facade of coziness is the doomed relationship with James Taylor (he broke away to form a relationship with Carly Simon). The big hit from For The Roses was the catchy, tongue in cheek You Turn Me On (I'm A Radio).

Court And Spark came out 2 years later - a notable gap given her productivity up till this time. That's because it took her a year to record it. The time was well spent because it's often regarded as one of the best albums ever. She is certainly on peak form in this 1970 to '74 period.

This time she really embraces bass and drums - these songs rock! Each one is a gem but her standards are really above the majority of artists. So, the highlights are these extraordinary songs - Free Man In Paris, Help Me, the title track, Raised On Robbery.

Her seventh album, The Hissing Of Summer Lawns, introduces synths into the musical landscape as well as the jazzy feel from last track on Court And Spark - Twisted. It's her most experimental album to this point with some avant-pop stylings and a toe in the water of world music (The Jungle Line). 

Kudos to her for trying some new things, but this isn't a favourite album of mine. That said, In France They Kiss On Main Street is a standout (Crosby/ Nash and James Taylor are there on backing vocals).

Hejira is my favourite Joni Mitchell album by some distance (ha ha - it's kind of a travelogue so the pun is intentional). Is it perfect? Yeah, probably. The songs, the music (Jaco Pastorius adds new dimensions on bass) and her vocals - I can't see how she could have improved on anything. 

The expansiveness (of vision and song length) is what I especially like about Hejira. She's inspired, and really stretches! Favourite songs - Amelia, Song For Sharon, Coyote (of course) and Refuge Of The Roads. Sublime!

Shadows And Light is a double live album that fully embraces her jazz fusion. Lyle Mays, Jaco Pastorius, Pat Metheny (especially fab on Amelia) are all virtuoso exponents from the jazz fusion world and Don Alias (drums) once played with Miles Davis. Michael Brecker is on sax. Quite the jazz band!

Obviously, this suits all the Hejira songs, which, along with her Mingus project songs, make up most of the set list.  The solo portions slow things down for me - it's the Hejira material which impacts me the most. No Song For Sharon though.

And so to the Geffen years (I skipped a couple of albums before and during these years). First up - Wild Things Run Fast. This was the first of four for Geffen and with her new guy, Larry Klein, on bass and co-producing.  

I like this album - her pop and jazz sensibilities co-exist well throughout. She's in good form and the eighties horror production values don't affect things. Instead, the instruments have space around them. Wayne Shorter's sax is a standout! Favourite songs - Chinese Cafe, (You're So Square) Baby, I Don't Care, You Dream Flat Tyres and the title song.

Dog Eat Dog is as close as she's come to a weak album as she embraces eighties technology (and doesn't even play any guitar on it). It's still a worthwhile album because she can't write a bad song or sing badly. Still, not one of my favourites. 

Chalk Mark In A Rain Storm is a much stronger effort, even though the eighties tech remains. She's back playing guitar and the sound is more organic. She is still experimenting, this time out she uses a variety of vocalists to provide some vocal foils, and her song content takes on some social issues. It makes for an interesting set of songs.

I lost track of Joni until 2007's Shine (her first set of new material since 1998's Taming The Tiger (which I haven't heard). Her music is quite lush on this album, and her vocals are obviously best described as weathered. A lifetime of smoking has affected her voice.

By this stage, it's just great that she's still around and making music. I heard about it via a review in Mojo Magazine (a five-star review).

Where do they all belong? I'm keen to pick up Miles Of Aisles at some point. It's been reissued but it's pretty expensive. I'll wait till I get a voucher or can find a secondhand copy.

The radio is playing all the usual and what's a wonderwall anyway? (Travis) #542 - 545

Travis Writing To Reach You/ Green Behind The Ears/ Only Molly Knows/ Yeah Yeah Yeah Yeah/ High as A Kite  (Sony, 1999)
Travis Why Does It Always Rain On Me?/ Village Man/ Driftwood (live)/ ...Baby One More Time/ Multimedia  (Sony, 1999)
Travis Driftwood/ Writing To Reach You (live)/ Good Day To Die (live)/ Baby One More Time (live)  (Sony, 2000)
Travis Turn/ River/ Days Of Our Lives/ Heart Of Gold (live)/ Baby One More Time (live)  (Sony, 2000)

Welcome to a Travis-a-thon this time. This is part one.

I went through a period of infatuation brought on by their stupendious The Man Who album.

All of these A sides come from that parent album and they are all fabulous songs.

Weird how the peculiar alchemy of a place and time can coalesce around a band like Travis. The combination of smart, well produced music (by Nigel Godrich), layers of guitars and Fran Healy's smoooth emotive vocals all lined up on these songs from The Man Who and the band haven't really been able to reproduce that form or evolve beyond them since in such a impressive way since.

Why Does It Always Rain On Me? is the knock out punch here (although Turn comes a close second). Just a great song with a great vibe: slight melancholy, slight triumph, slight self deprecation. It's a cathartic singalong delight.

All captured perfectly in the video below.

Hidden gems: The purple patch extends its glow to the B sides - none of the extra studio tracks, amazingly, appear on the parent album.

River (the Joni Mitchell song) is a highlight - a perfect song for Travis: I wish I had a river I could skate away on...mmmmmmmmmm

We are stardust (Joni Mitchell) #248

Matthews Southern Comfort 
Woodstock/ Scion (MCA, MC/S 2095, 1970)

Ah Woodstock. Long time readers will know how much I revere those three days man, threee days - we just love ya, we just love ya.

This version of Joni's song is for me the definitive version.

There are only three released versions that I know about: Joni's own version on Ladies Of The Canyon; CSN and Y's on Deja Vu; and Matthews Southern Comfort.

Why definitive?

It manages to capture the spirit of the time for me - all those dreamy hazy soundscapes with a laid back to the country vibe going on. And there are the group harmonies which are just perfect.

Went to #1 in the UK charts too.

Hidden gem: Scion is something of a rarity as it didn't appear on the MSC album of the time Later That Same Year; naturally, it has appeared as a bonus track subsequently. It's an Ian Matthews song in the same general style as the A side - loads of lovely pedal steel guitar and harmonies. A great second side!

Every sha-la-la-la, every wo-wo-wo still shines (The Carpenters)

Greg's blog talked about the radio the other day and this got me thinking about great songs that are about the radio.

I love songs about the radio. Here are my top five:

1Yesterday Once More (The Carpenters)

(keep watching for an oldies medley)


2 Overnight Sensation (The Raspberries)

(beware the long title intro)


3 Caravan (Van Morrison)



4 Crusin' Music (The Raspberries)

5 On The Radio (Donna Summer) (it was a toss up for 5th place between this and Joni's You Turn Me On, I'm a Radio which is also great from the title on down but Donna's hystrionics won the day)
Surprised that my favourite is Yesterday Once More (The Carpenters)? I was a little bit too, because, really - the Carpenters?

Never cool, always the other side of twee thanks to Richard Carpenter's hair and shocking dress sense (and vocals!), and something of a guilty pleasure.

But they had a secret weapon. Karen Carpenter's voice. A thing of beauty it was to be sure.

The Raspberries were just a great Badfinger style Beatles influenced group (with a Who obsession as well). These two songs acknowledge how much they loved the radio and specifically how much they loved hearing themselves on the radio. I like this idea that they are also music fans (same with the Carpenter's song).

Same goes with Van the man. I love this ode to the radio - turn it up indeed!

Money talks so listen to it (10CC)

Continuing with the first theme - the musician takes centre stage, here are my top 10 album covers using mid shots.

The flowers of deep feeling seem to serve me

35 Joni Mitchell, 'Song For Sharon'

Stories are important to me, having developed a love of reading from an early age. I don't know exactly where it comes from - that love. Three of my children have found it to varying degrees but my eldest daughter has not yet (she's 20). They have all had roughly the same stimulus to read but it hasn't stuck with her. Who knows why.

I think it's that love of reading and love of stories that leads me to songs like Song For Sharon on Joni Mitchell's great great Hejira album. It's a strange twisting, turning story that rewards every time.

This song/story is in the form of an open letter to her old friend Sharon.

Joni is on her way to Staten Island to buy herself a mandolin when she sees a wedding dress on a storefront mannequin. She watches the big ferry boat chuggin' back with a belly full of cars. She thinks about some girl who'll see that dress and crave that wedding day like crazy.

She thinks about little Indian kids on a bridge up in Canada. They can balance and they can climb like their fathers before them. They'll walk the girders of the Manhattan skyline in the future. Joni passes the Statue of Liberty. She's intending to head to the church to play bingo as soon as the ferry arrives at Staten Island. She's forgotten about the mandolin seemingly.

She tells us she can keep cool while playing at poker, but she's a fool when love's at stake because she can't conceal emotion. She remembers seeing a gypsy down on Bleecker Street.She went in to see her as a kind of joke. The gypsy lit a candle for my love luck and 18 bucks goes up in smoke.

She tells Sharon directly that she left her man at a North Dakota junction and came out to the "Big Apple" here to face the dream's malfunction. She calls love 'a repetitious danger'.

She also tells us about a woman she knew who just drowned herself in a well. Joni speculates as to why - maybe her friend was just shaking off futility or punishing somebody. The act has provoked all of Joni's other friends to get in touch with her and give her advice: Dora says, "Have children!"; Mama and Betsy say-"Find yourself a charity, help the needy and the crippled or put some time into Ecology."

But all Joni really wants right now is to find another lover.

She reminisces about when she and Sharon were kids in Maidstone. Joni remembers, amongst other things, going to every wedding in that little town to see the tears and the kisses and the pretty lady in the white lace wedding gown. Joni remembers going skating after Golden Reggie and chasing white lace and dreams of love. Instead, he showed her that first you get the kisses and then you get the tears. Joni is still chasing the dream of being a bride.

Having returned from Staten Island (did she buy the mandolin?) Joni watches 29 skaters on central park's Wollman rink circling in singles and in pairs.

This concludes Joni's story but before she takes her leave, she addresses Sharon directly to end the song. She says, 'Sharon - you've got a husband and a family and a farm. I've got the apple of temptation and a diamond snake around my arm. But you still have your music and I've still got my eyes on the land and the sky. You sing for your friends and your family, I'll walk green pastures by and by.'

It's an extraordinary story, almost dream like in its development and shifts. I wasn't able to find a live performance of Joni doing the song so I've attached the studio recording. It might be fun to read through the story as you listen, in singles or in pairs. Good luck with your own repetitious danger.

Just find your place to make your stand and take it easy

I was told today, as I made tracks to the stereo system, to not put on "any boom boom crash stuff, your horrible hillbilly music or jazz". This means she wanted 'nice music'. Boom boom crash = noise (Jimi Hendrix, Led Zep, Mastodon, Beatles et al), Hillbilly is reserved for the worst insult = twangy or nasal (Dylan, all blues, folk, Patti Smith et al) and Jazz includes everything else pretty much. Which doesn't leave a lot - soothing classical or a fringe act that somehow combines things into a new genre - Jacky music.

As you can probably tell I don't live with a music lover. In this instance I came up with David Crosby's 'Thousand Roads' album, The Thorns, Jackson Browne, and James Taylor - long since proven safe bets. I wasn't asked to take any off so I must have succeeded.

It got me thinking though as I was searching - what are the albums that stack up as quality but still qualify as 'nice music'. Clearly Captain Beefheart's 'Trout Mask Replica' is a non starter.

The following five albums are the ones that bear repeat showings and (through bitter experience) are 'nice music':
5) Joni Mitchell's 'Hejira' is absolutely there, so is 4) Bon Iver's brilliant 'For Emily, Forever Ago'. There is an other-worldly aspect to this music - they all sit outside established genres. So does 3) Aimee Mann 'Bachelor No.2'. She doesn't conform to female singer/songwriter norms, releases her work in the margins and has a maverick persona.

There are elements of pop and jazz and folk and it all makes a perfect sense. Plus she sounds superb. 2) Mike Oldfield's 'Ommadawn' stitches together prog and celtic music over two seamless sides and 1) Van Morrison's 'Moondance' combines jazz, the spiritual, the sexual, the lyricism of 'Astral Weeks' to make a sublime album that is the epitome of 'nice music' and sheer quality.