Something old, something new, something borrowed, something blue #10

Berries growing in hedgerow, Offerton.

We begin this morning with Lamb, and their excellent drum 'n' bass classic 'Gorecki'. I was first introduced to this song not long after it was released, by a friend who was just starting to transition from a broadly punk based musical diet to hip hop and drum'n'bass. She put it on a mixtape for me, but didn't label it. I absolutely hammered the tape and, after about a year, nature took its course and it snapped...

Fast forward about 13 or so years and I'm at home in the kitchen listening to 6music on a Saturday morning, and Liz Kershaw announce's she's playing Lamb next. And I hear the words 'If I should die...' and the hairs on the back of my neck stand on end because, at last, it is. That. Song.

End of quest.

I have a decidedly less intense relationship with Choir of Young Believers and their song 'Jeg Ser Dig', in which I have to concur wholeheartedly with the bands press release that singer Jannis Noya Makrigiannis sounds like a male Sade. This song was released in October, and there's a new album to follow in February 2016. The song is a lovely, sorrowful soundscape of a song. In Danish.

Probably not that many people, outside of the Lone Justice/Maria McKee fanbase, will have heard the Lone Justice version of Lou Reed's 'Sweet Jane', but it is definitely worth a listen. It first appeared on a Lone Justice E.P, which I suspect is now a collectors item, and resurfaced, years later, on a Maria McKee best of.

I've just discovered that, at last, someone has managed to upload the famous clip of Big Brother and the Holding Company perorming 'Ball and Chain' at the 1967 Monterey Pop Festival without it being taken down for copyright violation within a week. Hurrah! Rolling Stone presumably have the correct licence. So here it is in all it's glory for your enjoyment. There really is very little left to say about it as a clip, other than it being the moment when Janis Joplin clearly got her first moment in the limelight and showed she was a force to be reckoned with. 

Big Mama Thornton gave the world the original 'Ball and Chain', and I blogged about that version when Holly Combe and I were doing the Song of the day series on The F-Word. Both versions are really worth a listen. 

Image of Berries growing in hedgerow, Offerton, by Cazz Blase. Copyright Cazz Blase, all rights reserved.