13 Songs – 6

 Mumbles – Johnny Bachelor

I think we’ve pretty much established that when push comes to shove, I’m a Modernist. Taking into account- my initial introduction to music was Punk/New Wave, the truth of the matter is that when I analyse the breadth of my interests after everything I’ve listened to. My musical lineage begins late 50’s (1959 in fact) with A kind of blue. And whilst I do back track to Satie, Williams, Bartok, Charlie Parker, Slim Gaillard, the Birth of the Cool. I have mainly taken a pretty modernist perspective, especially when absorbing myself in the aural subtleties of the Modern Jazz Quartet. 

That lineage heads through Mod/beat/garage/psychedelic bands of the sixties, skips the early 70’s (although Bluebeat, ska, reggae, soul & funk fill the void) on through Punk-Mod-Acid Jazz-Britpop-Indie etc to today.

The glaring hole in my musical education was Blues, Rockin’ stuff, Country & indeed Western music. Whilst I suspect the majority C’n W will forever pass me by, I don’t mind Hank Williams & some of the Louvin Bros stuff. Rockin’ tunes have however seeped into my internal setlist, not least due to the influence of some of my dearest friends. The old Mod/Rockabilly/SussPunks demarcation line was pretty blurred by 1980… The Jodimars, followed by Booker T & The MG’s followed by The Monochrome Set.

Tales of old rockin’ numbers being recorded using a letter box as percussion and a one-string guitar ran amok. Singles were picked up from second-hand shops, car boot sales and late night party sleight of hand. One such record was ‘Mumbles’ by Johnny Bachelor, a clatter of amazing punk-diddley guitar and somewhat sardonic vocals – what a song! Everything about it, speaks of one-take recording, industrial quantities of reverb, cigarette smoke clogging the studio, a guitarist waiting to be cut loose and a singer sharing a tale about his girl. Lyrically nothing special, musically primitive, collectively - astonishing! 

 

Now I know a girl named Mumbles…