"Revolution: Underground Sounds Of 1968" by VARIOUS ARTISTS (February 2019 Esoteric Recordings 3CD Box Set) - A Review by Mark Barry

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"...Chariots Rising..."

In truth I faltered at the basket stage on this one. Looking at the track list across 3CDs (42 cuts) - I realised being an ardent fan of that wildly creative decade and a major collector of CD reissues for over 30 years now that I'd at least 75 to 80% of the entries offer here - so what's the point? Do I need another remaster of overdone 1968 hits like Arthur Brown's "Fire!" or Fleetwood Mac's "Black Magic Woman" or The Bonzo's "I'm An Urban Spaceman" or Julie Driscoll and Brian Auger's "This Wheel's On Fire" or even for that matter the lesser-heard "Race With The Devil" by Gun – the answer is not really...

But then those reissue hairy-types over at Esoteric Recordings (part of Cherry Red) know suckers like me; it's the gaps in between that I'm after. And they have filled out the well-endowed discs with clever inclusions. An unreleased song overture to Island Records from 1968 by The Action (hoping for a signing) that hasn't been available since it first saw light of day in 1985, rare B-sides by The Bystanders and Genesis, even rarer A-side single-only releases from Dave Mason, The Pretty Things and The Moles and an EP cut from Sam Gopal. And there is much more too...

There's the emergence of Seventies Prog Rock giants in former incarnations - the Gods featuring Ken Hensley later with Toe Fat and then of course Uriah Heep, Steve Howe with Tomorrow before Yes, The Crazy World Of Arthur Brown that featured a teenage Carl Palmer who would bash the kit for Emerson, Lake and Palmer, Ray Shulman dreaming of a Gentle Giant when he was with Dantalian's Chariot, Jeff Lynne plucking a bow with The Idle Race before he formed The Electric Light Orchestra, Cheerful Insanity from Robert Fripp in Giles, Giles & Fripp before changing the course of music with King Crimson and even a young Andy Somers who many years later would become the zippy guitarist Andy Summers in another tiny group - The Police. There's a lot to love here and it's been presented in Esoteric's usual top quality way (audio and looks). Here are the chariots rising...

UK released Friday, 22 February 2019 (1 March 2019 in the USA) - "Revolution - Underground Sounds Of 1968" by VARIOUS ARTISTS on Esoteric Recordings ECLEC 32662 (Barcode 5013929476202) is a 3CD, 42-Track Clamshell Box Set of Remasters that plays out as follows:

Disc 1 (73:24 minutes):

1. And The Address - DEEP PURPLE

2. This Wheel's On Fire - JULIE DRISCOLL, BRIAN AUGER & THE TRINITY

3. Talkin' About The Good Times - PRETTY THINGS

4. World War Three - DANTALIAN'S CHARIOT

5. A Saying For Today - THE ACTION

6. Crossroads Of Time - EYES OF BLUE

7. Sunshine Help Me - SPOOKY TOOTH

8. Early Morning - BARCLAY JAMES HARVEST

9. All Day, All Night - BLONDE ON BLONDE

10. Happy Birthday/The Birthday Party - IDLE RACE

11. Revolution - TOMORROW

12. We Are The Moles (Part 1) - THE MOLES

13. Blackberry Way - THE MOVE

14. One Eyed Hound - GENESIS

15. On A Saturday - KEITH WEST

16. Sovay - PENTANGLE

17. Cave Of Clear Light - THE BYSTANDERS

18. Soma (Parts One & Two) - DANTALIAN'S CHARIOT

19. Fire! - THE CRAZY WORLD OF ARTHUR BROWN

20. I'm The Urban Spaceman - THE BONZO DOG DOO DAH BAND

Disc 2 (72:39 minute):

1. Shapes Of Things - JEFF BECK

2. Black Magic Woman - FLEETWOOD MAC

3. Pearly Queen - TRAFFIC

4. People You Were Going To - VAN DER GRAAF GENERATOR

5. Reality - SECOND HAND

6. Love Is The Law - EYES OF BLUE

7. Dusty - JOHN MARTYN

8. In Her Mind - ECLECTION

9. Summertime - LOVE SCULPTURE

10. Fly Tomorrow - JOHN MAYALL

11. Place Of My Own - CARAVAN

12. No Title - TEN YEARS AFTER

13. Child Of My Kingdom - THE CRAZY WORLD OF ARTHUR BROWN

14. I Never Knew - THE GODS

Disc 3 (71:42 minutes):

1. My Sunday Feeling - JETHRO TULL

2. Sabre Dance - LOVE SCULPTURE

3. Flames - ELMER GANTRY'S VELVET OPERA

4. Somewhere To Go - THE DEVIANTS

5. Cold Embrace - SAM GOPAL

6. Shine On Brightly - PROCOL HARUM

7. Paradise Flat - STATUS QUO

8. That's Me - GENESIS

9. Suite No. 1 - GILES, GILES & FRIPP

10. Mist On A Monday Morning - THE MOVE

11. Ten Thousand Words In A Cardboard Box - THE AQUARIAN AGE

12. Mr. Sunshine - BARCLAY JAMES HARVEST

13. Just For You - DAVE MASON

14. S.F. Sorrow Is Born - PRETTY THINGS

15. Magic Man - CARAVAN

16. The Half-Remarkable Question - THE INCREDIBLE STRING BAND

17. Race With The Devil - GUN

18. Mandrake Root - DEEP PURPLE

The incredibly chunky 48-page booklet lines up the artists in alphabetical order (The Action and The Aquarian Age to Van Der Graaf Generator and Keith West) with MARK POWELL pouring on the biographies and details (he also compiled and researched the set). Page after Page offers promo photos, trade adverts, concert posters, men in fields communing with nature (or mushrooms) and so forth. It's a properly huge and thorough read (each of the singular CD card front sleeves features a montage of the photos used within the booklet). BEN WISEMAN has done the new Remasters at Alchemy with the Audio being uniformly great throughout - stuff like Love Sculpture and The Incredible String Band leaping out of the speakers.

The line-up of tracks is smartly done. Disc 1 opens its account with "And The Address" - one of two Stereo cuts from Deep Purple's September 1968 UK debut album "Shades Of..." on Parlophone PCS 7055 (the second is "Mandrake Root" which ends Disc 3). The Jon Lord/Ritchie Blackmore "And The Address" instrumental fades in a suitably doomy way only to eventually explode into a four-and-half minute Rock-Funk groove that allows ace axeman Blackmore room to bend and ping followed quickly by that huge organ sound Lord specialises in. It's so 60ts, so Deep Purple and so 1968.

The familiar sway of April 1968's "...does your memory serve you well..." from Julie Driscoll and Brian Auger follows nicely, the flanged rhythms of "This Wheel's On Fire" doing the Rick Danko and Bob Dylan composition a solid. The A-side of Columbia DB 8353 from The Pretty Things (February 1968) is "Talkin' About The Good Times" where our heroes (Dick Taylor and Phil May) produce an bona-fide slice of 60ts brilliance - The Who meets, well The Pretty Things.

To hell with pretty - let's rock is the mantra for "World War Three" by the fuzz-guitar grooving Dantalian’s Chariot - a band featured Zoot Money on Vocals, Pat Donaldson of Fairport Convention and Andy Summers of The Police. DC's wild guitar-driver recorded in January 1968 perfectly compliments one of this set's genuine joys - a melodic gem from The Action called "A Saying For Today”. Its an Ian Whiteman composition recorded in the summer of 1968 that only surfaced in 1985 on a rare UK 5-Track Mini LP called "Action Speak Louder Than..." on Dojo Records DOJOLP003 (one of Charly’s budget labels). Great stuff. Other winners on Disc 1 are Gary Wright's "Sunshine Help Me" - a Spooky Tooth sexy Rock groove from their Island Records debut album "It's All About" - sitar hippy dippy from Blonde On Blonde as he spends all day and all night dreaming of you - and shades of future brilliance as you barely recognise singer Peter Gabriel's voice on the May 1968 Genesis B-side "One-Eyed Hound" - a £400+ rarity originally on Decca 12775. Keith West gets an acoustic pop moment on the lovely "On A Saturday" - a July 1968 British 45 on Parlophone R 5713 featuring a hidden cache of stars - Steve Howe of Yes on Guitar, Ronnie Wood of the Faces and Stones on Bass and Aynsley Dunbar on Drums. Clive John and Micky Jones (later of Welsh rockers Man) penned the incredibly pretty and pure 60ts waft of "Cave Of Clear Light" – a rare and fab psychedelic B-side by The Bystanders – where these mind-travellers have clearly been spending too many hours on translucent lakes whilst watching a hermit meditate outside his cave, silent and free of the world (but maybe a little smelly though). Disc 1 finishes with Neill Innes having some fun on "I'm An Urban Spaceman" – a changing society song that caught the mood of the times, propelling it to an unlikely No. 5 spot on the UK singles chart in November 1968 on Liberty Records.

Discs 2 and 3 give us genius stuff like John Mayall in Laurel Canyon territory on the yeah man "Fly Tomorrow" (Mick Taylor of the Stones guesting to such wonderful effect) – the soft acoustic beauty of John Martyn plucking on "Dusty" from his second album "The Tumbler" (December 1968) with Harold McNair accompanying on Flute - the surprising Mamas and Papas meets The Moody Blues musicality of Eclection's gorgeous "in Her Mind" and Dave Edmunds getting all guitar-wild on the classical "Sabre Dance" in his band Love Sculpture (their cover of the Gershwin standard "Summertime" is another surprise ballad moment – very early Fleetwood Mac actually).

Changes were everywhere - Roy Wood would leave The Move doing their pastoral clavinet ditty "Mist On A Monday Morning" to form Wizzard and lash into the full-on glam of "Ball Park Incident", the Quo would abandon the frilly shirts and Pop-Psych of "Paradise Flats" and go no-nonsense Rock Boogie in 1970 with "Ma Kelly's Greasy Spoon" - while "My Sunday Feeling" from Tull's debut "This Was" is again a very clever choice - showing just how much styles were being mashed into each other to create new sounds and new angles. And as you touch on Van Der Graaf Generator, Caravan and even the normally rocking Ten Years After (their eight-minute-plus "No Title" is trippy 1968) – it's not a large musical leap to 1973 where Mike Oldfield's "Tubular Bells", Pink Floyd's "The Dark Side Of The Moon", Tull's "As Thick As A Brick" and the Yes double "Tales From Topographic Oceans" would actually take the chart top LP spots all in the same year. Five years earlier and 1968 was surely the beginning of all that...the revolution's starting point.

There's a knack to these releases and Esoteric seem to have it down pat these days. Great stuff and thoroughly recommended...

"Every Day I Have The Blues: The Sixties Anthology" by ALEXIS KORNER (November 2018 Grapefruit Records UK 3CD Clamshell Box Set - 2006/2007 Remasters) - A Review by Mark Barry...

"...Prayer Meeting..."

'The Alexis Korner Collection – The Godfather Of British Blues Remastered' series of digital reissues put out by Castle Music of the UK in 2006 and 2007 numbered nine expanded albums alone - roughly covering his first decade of music from 1962 to 1972. There was also one all-eras double-CD compilation called "Kornerstoned" in 2006 to round off that huge haul up to ten (I loved that set - the last song on Disc 2 here "Rosie (Alternate Version)" was an exclusive to that 2CD compilation). But all are now deleted and in many cases very expensive to acquire on the used market. There have also been wads of other CD reissues (before and since) touching on the same territory.

So with so many albums and off-cuts to his credit spread across too many disparate compilations  - how good is it to see this gorgeous 2018 Box Set from current day reissue kings Grapefruit Records of the UK finally gather together a huge chuck of his primo 60ts output and associations into one sweetly presented place and at a good price too (Robert Plant of Led Zeppelin and Paul Rodgers and Andy Fraser from Free are here amongst other luminaries). And even if there isn't technically a wad of newbee Previously Unreleased material (which is a bit of a disappointment) – the jam-packed playing times of each remastered disc more than makes up for it. And I for one am digging the sheer scope of what's on offer too. First, a potted breakdown...

Across 66-Tracks, "Every Day I Have The Blues..." includes songs from the nine albums "R&B From The Marquee" (November 1962, 9 of 12 tracks), "Red Hot From Alex" (June 1964, 5 Tracks), "Rhythm & Blues" (October 1964, 1 Track), "At The Cavern" (October 1964, 6 Tracks), "Alexis Korner’s Blues Incorporated" (June 1965, 5 Tracks), "Sky High" (April 1966, 9 Tracks of 15), "A New Generation Of Blues" (July 1968, 8 Tracks of 11 in Stereo), "Both Sides" (May 1970, 6 Tracks from a Dutch LP) and "Bootleg Him!" – an August 1972 2LP compilation of 60ts and 70ts outtakes (9 Tracks). There is also a rare acoustic-guitar song from an early British EP with Davy Graham, single and flexi sides, CD compilation exclusives and much more. Here are the intricate details...

UK released 22 November 2018 - "Every Day I Have The Blues: The Sixties Anthology" by ALEXIS KORNER on Grapefruit Records CRSEGBOX048 (Barcode 5013929184800) is a 3CD Retrospective in a Clamshell Box with Mini LP Sleeves and Booklet. It plays out as follows:

Disc One "Night Time In The Right Time" (77:40 minutes):

1. 3/4 A.D. - ALEXIS KORNER with DAVY GRAHAM

2. She Fooled Me - BLUES INCORPORATED

3. Gotta Move

4. Rain Is Such A Lonesome Sound

5. I Got My Brand On You

6. Keep Your Hands Off

7. I Wanna Put A Tiger In Your Tank

8. I Got My Mojo Working

9. Down Town

10. How Long, How Long Blues

11. I Thought I Heard That Train Whistle Blow

12. I'm Built For Comfort (Aka Everything She Needs)

13. Up-Town

14. Rockin'

15. Night Time Is The Right Time

16. See See Rider

17. Blue Mink

18. Rainy Tuesday

19. Yogi

20. Sappho

21. Preachin' The Blues

22. Taboo Man

23. Whoa Babe

24. Every Day I Have The Blues

25. Well All Right, O.K., You Win

Disc Two "Wednesday Night Prayer Meeting" (79:28 minutes):

1. Little Bitty Gal Blues

2. Hoochie Coochie Man

3. Kansas City

4. Woke Up This Morning

5. Stormy Monday

6. Cabbage Greens

7. Chicken Shack

8. Haitian Fight Song

9. I Need Your Loving

10. Please Please Please

11. Little Baby

12. Roberta (Single Version)

13. I Got A Woman

14. Oh Lord, Don't Let Them Drop That Atomic Bomb On Me

15. Long Black Train

16. Rock Me

17. I'm So Glad

18. Wednesday Night Prayer Meeting

19. Oo-Wee Baby

20. River's Invitation

21. Money Honey

22. Louise

23. Floating

24. Rosie (Alternative Version)

Disc Three "What's That Sound I Hear" (79:35 minutes):

1. Yellow Dog Blues

2. The Love You Save

3. Corina, Corina

4. Mary Open The Door

5. Little Bitty Girl

6. Go Down Sunshine

7. The Same For You

8. I'm Tore Down

9. In The Evening

10. Somethin' You Got

11. What's That Sound I Hear

12. I Wonder Who? (Alternative Version)

13. Operator

14. Steal Away

15. Mighty Mighty (Spade And Whitey)

16. Funky

17. Wild Injun Woman

18. To Whom It May Concern

19. I See It

20. You Don't Miss Your Water

Each of the themed-CDs has a period photo - Blues Incorporated for Disc One with Cyril Davies and Dick Heckstall-Smith, Alexis alone in the recording studio on a chair for Disc Two and for Disc Three – Alexis with his trademark rounded hipster black glasses and an acoustic guitar at a gig microphone. The 22-page booklet features new liner notes from noted writer DAVID WELLS and has all the Ace of Clubs, Decca and Liberty album sleeves, loads of trade adverts from NME, Evening Standard, Melody Maker and Jazz News, those rare Blues Incorporated Parlophone singles, a flyer for a Champion Jack Dupree gig with Al Sykes and Alexis on the same December bill (six schillings at the door!) and even a picture of Herbie Goins during the recording of the "Red Hot From Alex" LP. It's very tastefully done.

There is no mastering credit so it’s got to be the Sanctuary/Castle Music remasters done in 2006 and 2007 and they reflect the recording standards of the time – a lot of the basically-recorded Mono on Disc 1 is good to ok, while Discs 2 and 3 get better and 3 in particularly (largely Stereo) sounds amazing (the late Sixties outtakes on the cool "Bootleg Him!" double are hair-raising).

It opens with a very cool and wonderfully recorded acoustic duet instrumental "3/4 A.D." recorded April 1961 and released March 1962 on the uber-rare British "Alexis Korner/Davy Graham EP" on Topic Records TOP 70 - a tune that's more John Renbourn Folk than Blues. It's followed by the first of the "Bootleg Him!" outtakes - a cover of Billy Boyd Arnold's "She Fooled Me" as done by Blues Incorporated. The lavishly presented 20-track "Bootleg Him!" double-album first appeared August 1972 in the UK on Mickie Most's RAK Records SRAKSP 51 and "She Fooled Me" is one of the earliest cuts on that trawl-haul, recorded January 1962. Even then Alexis's voice had that cool to it - and if you can forgive the terribly sexist lyrics, you can enjoy Cyril Davies warbling so effectively on the Harp.

"Gotta Move" is a good Korner original - a boogie instrumental from the groundbreaking November 1962 British LP "R&B At The Marquee" on Decca's budget label Ace Of Hearts ACL 1130 (credited to Alexis Korner's Blues Incorporated). Better is the fantastically evocative vocals of the dapper Long John Baldry fronting a cover of Jimmy Witherspoon's "Rain Is Such A Lonesome Sound" as Cyril lays into the Harmonica in between verses - another winner from the "Marquee" LP. Speaking of Cyril Davies, he finally steps up to the microphone on the Willie Dixon-penned Muddy Waters song "I've Got My Brand On You" and while he was never Baldry or Korner in terms of sheer expressiveness - I've always thought Cyril's vocals just as good as say John Mayall (he also fronts "I Wanna To Put A Tiger In Your Tank" and "Got My Mojo Working" on the same LP). Baldry returns two more times to great effect on "How Long, How Long Blues" (a Leroy Carr cover) and his own composition "I Thought I Heard That Train Whistle Blow" which nicks lyrics from the Carr song.

The audio takes a leap upwards for the five tunes featured from the June 1965 LP "Alexis Korner’s Blues Incorporated" originally on Ace Of Clubs ACL 1187. All are instrumentals – four Alexis originals and a cover of the Son House classic "Preachin’ The Blues". Top audio or not, I wish I could say I’ve always enjoyed them but they’ve always felt plodding to me – strangely dull. Better is the greasy and dirty live recording of "Whao Babe" from the October 1964 UK LP "At The Cavern" originally on Oriole PS 40058 – an AK original that at least has heart amidst a manic letting rip. Herbie Goins does lead vocals on the second and third "At The Cavern" inclusions – the set’s title tune "Every Day I Have The Blues" and "Well All Right, O.K., You Win" – Alexis announcing him as “...someone you can sing...” while Dave Castle plays a blinder on Saxophone behind a clearly inebriated band (Malcolm Saul on Organ).

Disc 2 offers three more "At The Cavern" instalments – a cracking groove for Big Joe Turner's "Little Bitty Gal Blues" – once again Dave Castle complimenting an Alexis' vocal with superb Saxophone fills. The other two are the Willie Dixon Chess Records classic "Hoochie Coochie Man" (made famous by Muddy Waters) and Lieber/Stoller's Wilbert Harrison rocker "Kansas City" sung by Herbie Goins. Upping the audio again - Goins adds some of that vocal class to five from the superb "Red Hot From Alex" set, a June 1964 UK LP on Transatlantic Records TRA 117. The band features Danny Thompson of Pentangle fame on Double Bass while Dave Castle gets to drag out the flute for a cool version of T-Bone Walker's "Stormy Monday" - a gorgeous groove. Dick Heckstall-Smith also returns for Saxophone on "Chicken Shack" along with fellow horn player Art Thelmen. But my faves on Disc 2 are two quiet Acoustic and Harmonica shuffles from the lesser-seen June 1966 UK LP "Sky High" on Spot JW 551 - a Johnny Temple cover of "Louise" and his own "Floating" - just Acoustic and naught else. Nice...

Disc 3 has the sensational "Steal Away" recorded September 1968 before Robert Plant had joined Page's motley crew as Led Zeppelin's front man. It's pure 'Zep I' territory, Plant wailing in that fantastic Bluesy voice while Korner answers in mumbles. It could even double as a debut outtake. Zeppelin famously included a nod to "Steal Away" by incorporating a snippet of it in "How Many More Times" - the song that ends Side 2 of their explosive January 1969 debut on Atlantic Records. Another forgotten gem is the "Both Sides" album from May 1970 issued in Germany on Metronome Records and in the Netherlands on Phillips 6413 008 (its this version they use). Andy Fraser of Free plays Bass on the album while the subtly distinctive vocals of Paul Rodgers can also be heard duetting with Korner on "To Whom It May Concern" - while Avant Garde artist Lol Coxhill lends his saxophone warbles to Korner's cover of Free's "Wild Indian Woman" (mysteriously respelled as "Wild Injun Woman"). Korner's love of Soul Music is very prominent on the "Both Sides" album too – he covers The Staples Singers "Soul Folk In Action" LP cut "I See It", William Bell's classic "You Don't Miss Your Water" (how I cry) and Curtis Mayfield's call for racial social justice in "Mighty Mighty (Spade And Whitey)" – Paul Rodgers of Free joining him on the backing vocals. Very tasty...

If ever an artist/catalyst deserved reverence and remembrance, then the part-Greek, part-Turk, part-Austrian and yet somehow all-English Alexis Korner is that guy. Along with Cyril Davies and John Mayall - Korner is often referred to as 'the Godfather of British Blues' and these three themed-CDs show why. A great reminder of a great artist (with a whole lotta help from others)...

"It's The Beer Talking - Adventures In Public Houses" by IAN CLAYTON (Paperback, Route Publishing, February 2019) - A Review by Mark Barry...

"...Bet Your Bollocks On It!"

Characters and more characters...

When I worked at Reckless Records in Soho's Berwick Street – I'd be standing there, all magnificent and humble - vacuuming dry yet another Atlantic Plum label LP on our whizz-bang ding-dang-dolally Loricraft PRC 6. Judging it an act of extraordinary generosity (and nay even compassion) – I'd often regale to the young lads and lassies that worked with me (lucky sods), that as an Irishman my absolute favourite thing about England and English people is their lunacy. They're all mad. Even the ones who tell you they're quite sane and have a fabulously convincing front of normalcy (and possibly even possess impressively typed bits of paper to prove it) – they're almost always the worst. Nuts the whole dang lot of them. Mad Dogs and Englishmen go out in the midday sun. And I love it...

I mean the Irish are bonkers for sure too – and famously so – what with the marauding Viking blood coursing through our hirsute Celtic groins and Shamrock-Shaped Y-Fronts (you want a pair of those don't you) – a land where fine looking women turn into swans for no good reason and then go and live on a lake for a thousand years (weeping and wailing the entire time), a country traumatised by the sheer volume of all those Lord Of The Dance costumes and Michael Flatley comebacks, where Guinness is prescribed for acne and toothaches (tastes good but doesn't fix either) and people consume pancake-sized mushrooms just to make it through the 80ts mix tape  on the last bus home. Mad, mad, mad - mad as a ring-dum-a-doo-dum-a-da (whack for your Daddy-O) - in a land where men are men, sheep worry and seagulls fly in pairs.

But we pale into mere insignificance against the towering achievement of the British - the biz-snitz when it comes to bonkers. And at long last along comes an entire book of such people and their lifestyles to bolster up my long held views – views it has to be said that have often been questioned and even ridiculed by longhaired types of lesser bearing (probably bloody foreigners - see Daily Mail for incontrovertible proof).

Ever since his first widely acclaimed tome on Music and its effect on his life "Bringing It All Back Home" – I've had genuine warmth for Ian Clayton's writing and superb knack of recollection, his way of bringing those tiny moments of life and connection into your living room – in short the kind of writer that makes you smile and think. Well once again Clayton has gathered together the stories of characters he's met along life's pathways and collated together their often whacky motivation. These are the kind of nutjobs that can only be found in pubs – especially ones where the beer is good and the landlord even more nutty than the dog asleep under the darts board with half a tail and an eye once reputedly owned by Napoleon.

Inside "It's The Beer Talking – Adventures In Public Houses" (published by Route, February 2019) you'll meet rugby fans in Pontefract pubs with a roaring thirst after a good game, men stripping down Triumph motorbikes that refuse to work (but they do it anyway), Delaney the Irish road digger who downs a gallon of pints and then sweats that off on miles of tarmac, Ianto the Cornish scaffolder who'll polish off a half dozen Tetley Bitters in 35 minutes and work the planks and girders until dark without incident, Josie the tough but warmhearted Irish landlady who'd feed the shivering workers still waiting for payday to make sure they didn't do themselves and their already old bodies a mischief and the shifty womaniser 'Suitcase John' - out the window and gone in the morning. In its pages you'll encounter railway pubs that smell of sweat and wintergreen and have portly bartenders who wipe glasses with towels close to being condemned as bio-hazardous material. You get knackered decades-old but inviting snugs in watering holes with names like The Jubilee, The Greyhound, The Junction, The Green Dragon and The Travellers Rest – boozers that have poured thousands of glasses of Bass, Tadcaster, Old Peculiar, Adnams, Pedigree and Sam Smith by Tuesday night let alone the busy weekend. Bars where broody out-of-work miners itching for some fisticuffs would be told by tough landlords to 'cut it out lads'.

And on the opposite end of the social scales, there's the dapper Mr. and Mrs. Whitney-Mayo who ate Kippers and Dundee Marmalade for breakfast and had been tea planters in India back in the days of the Raj. There's the curmudgeonly old landlord Ron Crabtree who served a beer of legendary flooring power called Enoch's Hammer - named after a bit of machinery some welders broke (it had the same effect on your brain). Pubs where Northern Men would discuss ferrets, roll-ups, the game on Wednesday, the state of some of the pillocks on Mastermind, the beautiful cisterns of original Thomas Crapper loos, the life-affirming joy of Motown, Stax and Atlantic 45s, the curves of Sonja Kristina in Curved Air and the psychedelic escape pod of Spirit's "Twelve Dreams Of Dr. Sardonicus" vs. the proletariat's plight highlighted in Dylan's "Highway 61 Revisited" - and all whilst rectifying the problems of Western civilisation by closing time.

Clayton doesn't just scour England for the perfect pint and chat either – he casts his public house net far and wide. There's Jurgen and Volker and the young hipster types in the Katzengold Bar (Fool's Good) in Wuppertal in Northern Germany where a perfect pint of Pils can often takes up to the seven minutes to pour. He's sampled bottles of Fruh Kolsch in China, supped real ale at the North Sea Jazz Festival in The Hague and loved the purity of the beer brewed in Bavaria to the Reinheitsgebot laws that go back to the Middle Ages – an enlightened Euro settlement where pipes from the local brewery go underground and literally into the bars of the town. And on it goes in his search for the perfect pint accompanied by a congenial natter...

You meet people in life who seem to think that others are largely there for their amusement. Ian Clayton isn't one of those life-voyeurs. He's inquisitive, talkative, interested in your story, your ups and downs and even your heartache (he, his wife Heather and his family have had a few of their own). But what occurs time and time again throughout the text is that he's connecting – luxuriating in expression and banter - seeking out people - especially if it leads to that precious stuff called friendship. You would imagine Ian has a lot of friends who value him and isn't that the loveliest thing to say of anyone, let alone a writer. We should all be so lucky.

I enjoyed "It's The Beer Talking – Adventures In Public Houses" so much and I think you will too – take time to make friends with it...

Obscure But Beautiful Cover Version by ELIZABETH FRASER [of Cocteau Twins] of a CHIC Song... (2003 Rough Trade CD)

Obscure But Beautiful Cover Version of a CHIC song

by ELIZABETH FRASER [of Cocteau Twins] 

"At Last I Am Free"...

A real obscuro this...

"At Last I Am Free" first turned up as a Disco/Soul ballad on the second studio album "C'est Chic" by CHIC in November 1978 on Atlantic Records - penned of course by the mighty duo of Bernard Edwards and Nile Rodgers (I think Luther Vandross might have been one of the backing singers too).

Here the stunning vocals of The Cocteau Twins' lead singer Elizabeth Fraser takes that forgotten lovely and gives it a new lease of life in 2003 whilst still retaining the heartbreak melody that Edwards and Rogers always had in the original.

Elizabeth's version is on "Stop Me If You Think You've Heard This One Before..." - a 16-Track cover versions CD compilation put out September 2003 in the UK to celebrate 25 Years of independent releases on Rough Trade Records (Rough Trade RTRADECD100 – Barcode 5050159810024). Each of the 16 artists covers a diverse set of tunes – Aztec Camera has their "We Could Send Letters" done by Mystic Chords Of Memory, Galaxie 500 has "Tugboat" taken on by British Sea Power while Young Marble Giants see their "Final Day" stabbed at by Belle & Sebastian. Royal City do an acoustic pretty version of "Is This It" by The Strokes while Delays pop up the slight menace in the Mazzy Star tune "Ride It On". And so on...

In truth, its probably more likely that Liz Frasier based her version of "At Last I Am Free" on a Robert Wyatt cover of the song that showed up on an Italian Rough Trade LP in 1981 - the self-titled "Robert Wyatt" album issued on Base Records.

Whatever you look at it - along with Tom Smith's equally obscure cover of Prefab Sprout's "Bonny" (Tom Smith of The Editors) and Peter Gabriel's truly innovative strip down of David Bowie's "Heroes" - its one of those rare occasions in music where the second-go-round compliments the first - or (it could be argued) even equals it.

Gorgeous and then some...