lefreeakblog

Being in lockdown has given us an opportunity to explore the arts more and there has been a variety of things available for discernible listeners in music. We've had the One World: Together At Home concert, new album releases, new documentaries, various musicians playing online and #timstwitterlisteningparties. The Charlatans' lead singer Tim Burgess started hosting listening parties on Twitter whilst in self-isolation and they caught on:every day he picks an album and everyone listens together, with commentary from the chosen artist. What seems like quite a geeky exercise comes into its own in this current climate of self-isolation. So last Thursday I earmarked Oasis' third album  Be Here Now  as an ideal place to join in; how would it play 20 years later? As an event, it was really good fun and felt like a moment as thousands of people joined in. It reminds you of what listening to a whole album is like and also brings with it a sense of nostalgia, all great feeling

It's four years yesterday since Prince Rogers Nelson, commonly known as Prince , passed away on 21st April 2016. Undoubtedly he was one of few true popular music icons of the last 40 years, who's creativity was unparalleled in modern music, the like of which we may never see again. The world including the Grammy's and such celebrity fans as Usher, Beck, John Legend and Questlove have been celebrating his music and his life and I'll be writing my own feature on his Purple Highness at some point, but for now let's enjoy the genius he left behind; I've put together two playlists on Spotify, one of Deep cuts and one of Party classics, with hit after hit after hit.  Enjoy: PRINCE Party playlist PRINCE deep cuts playlist

Before life changed immeasurably and I like most of the rest of the world had to go into lockdown, I went to see a band I'd barely heard of, at a venue i'd never been too.. Saturday 15th Feb seems a world away now, it was cold, blustery and dark, a typical British Feb evening then. Indeed life was normal. A friend and I, on his recommendation, decided to see Half Man Half Biscuit , one of Britain's unsung bands, one of our Top 100 cult heroes (according to Mojo Magazine at least) and a band that has outlived most other Post-Punk/Indie bands that started around the same time. It's also a band I'd virtually never heard as being a Nineties kid meant I missed Post-Punk and the early Indie bands outside of The Smiths and The Jam (who had been revered by my Britpop heroes at the time). It was a first in more ways than one tonight, being also my first visit to Roadmender, Northampton's and indeed the East Midland's premier venue for live music, particularly fo

Ain't No Sunshine launched the career of Bill Withers, who passed away recently aged 81. Overhearing a frustrated promoter in a club saying how much a late arrival was getting paid, a toilet making Bill Withers put together a demo which included this song, one which very quickly became a modern standard, covered by an amazing number of wide ranging recording artists including Paul McCartney, José Feliciano, Isaac Hayes, Sivuca, Kenny Rogers, Tom Jones, Ladysmith Black Mamboza, and perhaps most famously Michael Jackson, who released it as his first track on his first solo album  Got To Be There,  a mere 6 months after Bill Withers initial release, such was its hit potential. The song was written and first released on Bill Wither's debut  Just As I Am  in July 1971 and originally a B-side to "Harlem" before DJs disagreed and flipped it over, promoting it to the A-side. It very quickly went Gold hitting Number 3 in the US Billboard Top and winning a Grammy for Best