Monthly Archives: Sep 2024

Rockin’ Jimmy & The Brothers Of The Night (1982)

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In this day and age, it’s weirdly reassuring to recommend an album which resolutely refuses to appear on streaming platforms or even CD.

So, at the time of writing, it has always ever been just a 1982 vinyl release for Rockin’ Jimmy & The Brothers Of The Night (widely available on Discogs).

Fronted by bespectacled Rockin’ Jimmy Byfield, they were a Tulsa-based bar band with country, blues and R’n’B influences, prowling similar territory as late Little Feat, JJ Cale, mid-‘70s Eric Clapton (who covered Byfield’s ‘Little Rachel’ on There’s One In Every Crowd), early Dire Straits, late-‘70s Ry Cooder and even ZZ Top at their most laidback.

Championed by Alexis Korner on his fabled Radio 1 show, Rockin’ Jimmy’s second and final album was one of the first ‘rock’ albums your correspondent remembers enjoying. It appeared on the small but influential, Notting Hill-based Sonet Records. Based around Byfield’s pleasant voice and Chuck DeWalt’s fat beats, the band eschewed distorted guitars and blues/rock cliches in favour of catchy, melodic songs and neat ensemble work.

The album’s beautifully recorded, with no concessions to early 1980s production (thanks to Brit helmer Peter Nicholls, best known for his work with Joe Cocker and Leon Russell). ‘Rockin’ All Nite’, ‘Angel Eyes’ and ‘It’s A Mystery’ have staying power. The rest of the album hasn’t dated much either.

Sadly the band split after this second record, but they did apparently tour a little until the end of 1982, as this clip attests, and may still occasionally play around Tulsa (correct?). The cover’s quite cool too – which meeting of which ‘brotherhood’ is Byfield about to attend? The shadow knows…

Madonna @ The MTV Video Music Awards: 40 Years On

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40 years ago this weekend, Madonna stunned the music biz with her premiere performance of ‘Like A Virgin’ on the MTV Awards at the Radio City Music Hall, NYC.

Not a household name at the time, she sung live in full wedding regalia, perched atop a giant cake, before shedding her shoes and veil and ending up writhing around the stage, her underwear exposed.

In terms of landmark pop TV moments, some have compared it to The Beatles on ‘The Ed Sullivan Show’ or Michael Jackson’s moonwalking on ‘Motown 25’. Others saw it as summing up the coarsening of popular culture.

But Madonna’s stylist Maripol later claimed to Classic Pop magazine that MTV ‘tried to destroy her that day…they put the camera under her skirt.’ And it’s hard to see the performance outside the context of Prince’s highly sexualised ‘Purple Rain’ movie (released in the US two months earlier) and attendant live shows.

It’s also widely forgotten that this performance came a month before ‘Like A Virgin’ was released as a single, so this was the first time most people had heard the song (‘Borderline’, from Madonna’s self-titled debut album, was only just peaking in Europe in September 1984). Bravely, Madonna refused to perform either ‘Borderline’ or ‘Holiday’ for MTV.

Still, manager Freddy DeMann was reportedly furious with Madonna, believing the performance to be career suicide. But of course it was just the opposite, helping propel her to megastardom. Happy birthday to a groundbreaking moment of 1980s pop.

(Postscript: As for the MTV Awards, they’re still going strong – Madonna spawned quite a monster…)

Book Review: American Drummers (1959-1988) by Val Wilmer

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Val Wilmer has arguably been Britain’s leading jazz photographer (and writer of classic jazz book ‘As Serious As Your Life’) since she started taking pictures of musicians over 60 years ago.

And now Café Royal Books have issued a lovely budget paperback of Wilmer’s photos entitled ‘American Drummers 1959-1988’, which does exactly what it says on the tin (though note ‘jazz’ doesn’t appear – possibly because it’s a word with which some of the musicians therein have expressed difficulty).

To my knowledge, it’s the first book of its kind. And – befitting a truly original artist – Wilmer’s work generally defies expectations. For example it’s nothing like Francis Wolff’s meticulous, pristine, famous photos of players such as Art Blakey and Elvin Jones.

Instead her general focus is on the minutiae of the working drummer’s life – we see Andrew Cyrille and Marquis Foster unloading kits from their cars, Denis Charles practicing on the steps of a New York tenement, Zutty Singleton chatting with Count Basie outside a bar, Papa Jo Jones in a drum store, Ed Blackwell chilling with a newspaper, Blakey backstage.

But of course showmanship is one of the chief tools in the drummer’s armoury, and as such there are exciting shots of all-time great players in performance including Billy Higgins, Tony Williams, Milford Graves, Max Roach, Ronald Shannon Jackson and Kenny Clarke.

And the kicker: this wonderful book retails at around just £6.99 in the UK (as do the other Café Royal titles) – don’t miss it.

Tony Williams, Hammersmith Odeon, London, 1967