And for those of a certain age who fell a little late for Cream to be more than an oldies band, Paul Weller shows up in The Sunday Herald under A wilder Weller He may be at an ominous age, but Paul Weller's still in the modern world:"There can’t be many rock musicians who, when looking back over their career, will drop the names of Schubert, Bach, Beethoven and Messiaen into the conversation. But then, Jack Bruce is not your average musician. Nor, as the endless online polls on the subject demonstrate, is he exactly average in the bass-guitar department. Indeed, many consider him to be one of the greatest bass players of all time."
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Ask him who he regards as the best bass players in pop and rock history (see box) and he answers at once: “If you’re talking electric bass, it’s very, very simple: James Jamerson, Paul McCartney, Jaco Pastorius, me.”
Not everything on 22 Dreams works. God, the spoken-word track, is voiced by former Stone Roses guitarist Aziz Ibrahim and sounds like John Cooper Clarke reading a Billy Graham sermon. But the ambition of the project as a whole reveals a musician whose influences and interests are becoming more wide-ranging as the years pass.
Amid the new there is plenty of the old, however. The pastoral and folk themes that have cropped up throughout Weller's work, even in the days of The Jam, can still be found - on Black River, for instance, Sea Spray and Where'er Ye Go - while songs like current single Have You Made Up Your Mind have antecedents which are even more familiar, namely the soul and R&B that inspired the Mod groups of 1960s England and which in turn have framed Weller's musical and visual aesthetic over the course of his more than 30-year career.
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Noel Gallagher tells a story about Weller visiting him at home in London recently and turning up in a long leather coat, yellow trousers and suede shoes - and leaving his Mini parked in the middle of the road, where it attracted the attention of a parking warden. Robert Wyatt has a more thoughtful take on his friend, saying that "he has achieved something that is almost taboo in rock music: maturity". He could have added that, with the honourable exception of Elvis Costello, Weller is the only musician from the punk era who is still relevant today and will continue to be so tomorrow. Not bad for a man who wears yellow trousers.
I first heard James McMurtry years ago, lost track of him and now he is coming back. Glad to hear that and glad to see him in The Washington Post under His Songs? Bleak. His Future? Bright.
MADISON, Ind. -- Figuring that his well-traveled touring van was past due for an oil change, James McMurtry thought about looking for a Jiffy Lube when he pulled into town for the night's gig. But then he got a better idea. "First order of business, I'm gonna see if they have beer in the Mexican restaurant behind the hotel," he said.
***While McMurtry hasn't actually transformed himself into a full-time protest singer, he has earned more new fans than he's lost by flying his left-leaning flag.
"Our job is to be remembered, not loved," he says. "Your job is to make an impact. And if they hate you, they'll remember you, too."
He takes a swig of beer, then says: "You can like the art without liking the artist. You can."
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