Seven Songs for the Week #72

Too Sweet is/was a fully fledged hit everywhere. This follow up is admirably not Too Sweet Part 2. I like that elephant guitar/descending bass bit. The Atmos mix is better than the regular stereo which is a bit much.

I watched the film Palm Springs (Amazon Prime) this week and this song is in it. It's new to me. It's interesting to hear it next to the Hozier song because Hozier is mixed and mastered LOUD, this track has space and sounds more satisfying for it.

Had forgotten about this track until I saw Peej singing it on tv the other night. I've never seen her live, which I should rectify, although she played Dublin at the start of the summer so I'll have to wait.

The new MOJO comes with an incredibly good CD of music from 1974. Two Bob Dylan tracks from his upcoming boxset, King Crimson's Red and loads of other goodies. Including this. I has bought the album this year on Record Store Day but it was still in the shrink-wrap, so I rectified that and put it on. I love this kind of music, I find it very soulful.

I put on Trout Mask Replica this week, which is something I do every decade. I think it's getting better! TMR isn't on streaming though. So here's Her Eyes Are A Blue Million Miles, which is the second song from the Big Lebowski soundtrack that I've put on one of these lists - can YOU remember the other one?

Are you ready for some... Ben Waters?

This version of Dylan's Watching the River Flow comes from a 2011 tribute album to Ian Stewart. If you know who Ian Stewart is, then you know. If you don't, he was the piano player in The Rolling Stones, having been an original member of the band and staying with them until his sudden death in 1985. "But wait, I don't recall The Rolling Stones having a piano player?" you might say, and I'd say "Ahhhh, but they did, and it was Ian Stewart". Unfortunately, once Andrew Loog Oldham became their manager, he felt Ian didn't look "right" (check out this photo, it does look like Tommy Cooper was let join The Beatles https://miro.medium.com/v2/resize:fit:1400/format:webp/1*mCJ6hAIsQ_lvnijfN63joA.jpeg ) and fired him from the official line-up but he still played with the band and also became part of the road crew. Ian remained with the Stones until his sudden death in 1985, so he was still an unofficial Stone when Mick & Keith were avoiding each other at Live Aid.

So again I ask, are you ready for some Ben Waters? Ben is a UK jazz pianist and Ian Stewart fan. Ian plays piano on this track with Keith Richards & Ronnie Wood on guitars, rhythm section of Charlie Watts & Bill Wyman, and on vocals/harmonica it's Mick Jagger. Why isn't that the Rolling Stones? Why yes it is! Not only that, it's the five-man Stones that had ceased to exist 20 years earlier.

There's something striking about the "Sixth Stone" being the only person to get the five other Stones back together. It's also noticeable that there were so many Stones records featuring an unmentioned Ian, that here's an Ian album with an unmentioned Rolling Stones. I'm sure lawyers were involved, but nowhere on the packaging for this record points out that this is The Rolling Stones.

I like this a lot, and wish the subsequent 2016 Blue & Lonesome Stones cover album was more like this.

Did you know Coldplay has a fifth member you don't know about? Seriously, look it up.

I don't like to repeat artists on the same seven song playlist. The previous track was The Rolling Stones under the Ben Waters name. To bring it full circle, here's a Rolling Stones track, with no Rolling Stones on it, just Ian Stewart. So they're different. The Stones were working on Dirty Work when he died, and this brief clip of Ian playing pops up unannounced at the end of the record as a tribute. It's a disarming moment in a record that feels very "producer in studio".

(Listened to DW this week, not as bad as its reputation suggests but there are 2 absolutely howling bad songs and somehow Charlie's swing is produced out of the mix)