FRIDAY MUSIC: For King & Country, by JD

For King & Country, stylised as for KING & COUNTRY and formerly known as Joel & Luke as well as Austoville, is a Christian pop duo composed of Australian brothers Joel and Luke Smallbone. The brothers were born in Australia and, with their family, emigrated to the United States as children, settling in the Nashville area.

https://www.forkingandcountry.com/

for King & Country "No Turning Back" (Official Live Room Session)

for KING & COUNTRY with Carín León – “O Come, O Come Emmanuel” | CMA Country Christmas 2024

for KING + COUNTRY - burn the ships (Official Music Video)

for KING + COUNTRY - Ceasefire - Music Video

for KING + COUNTRY - pioneers (Official Music Video)

FRIDAY MUSIC: Eddi Reader, by JD

 In the Hogmanay posts there has usually been a song or two from Eddi Reader. She deserves a post of her own.

Eddi Reader grew up in Glasgow and Irvine, Scotland and it was in those towns that she learned to use music as a vehicle for communicating with others through busking and performing at the local folk clubs. In the early 1980s, Eddi travelled around Europe with circus and performance artists before moving to London where she quickly became a sought after session vocalist. She famously harmonized with Annie Lennox touring with the Eurythmics, after her time with successful punk outfit Gang of Four. It was the short-lived but warmly remembered Fairground Attraction that really brought her into the limelight and to the attention of a much wider audience.

https://eddireader.co.uk/

Eddi Reader - Dragonflies

Eddi Reader - Patience of Angels (Live on Later) HQ

Eddi Reader - Wild Mountain Side - East Lothian Homecoming

Eddi Reader - La Vie En Rose (Jools Annual Hootenanny 2020)

Eddi Reader - In a Big Country (Live HQ)

FRY-DAY MUSIC! A dragon for St Valentine's Day

JD is experiencing technical problems, so today we repost an event from 2013: the dragon that attacked Chelyabinsk, Russia on St Valentine's Day 2013. See, they do exist!

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"A.D. 793. This year came dreadful fore-warnings over the land of the Northumbrians, terrifying the people most woefully: these were immense sheets of light rushing through the air, and whirlwinds, and fiery dragons flying across the firmament."

- The Anglo-Saxon Chronicle.

 

In mythology, there are dragons or wyrms, but also two-legged or legless, poisonous or fiery wyverns, or lindworms. I have seen long ago but cannot now find on the Internet an engraving, possibly sixteenth century, of one of the latter, destroying whole villages with its fiery breath. I wondered then how someone could dare invent something on that scale, so disprovable.

 

And then on St Valentine's Day 2013 (or 15th February, depending on the time zone you were in at the time), one visited Chelyabinsk.

 

This time the evidence was direct and undeniable, not merely reconstructed with an artist's imagination. According to James Higham, Russians commonly drive with dashcams because of the risk of fake, compensation-seeking "accidents" like this. And so at last we got the proof, for the world to see.

 

Down it flew, a long, fiery shape with a snake-like body and no legs, its deafening roar sufficient to blow in windows and doors and knock down walls, the flames of its breath bright enough to cast shadows. Had it not landed in an ice-covered lake, but hit solid ground, the destruction would have been enormous, as it had been a century ago in Tunguska.

 

Here be dragons.

 

Images taken from this video compilation, and this.

As for the dragon music, here is a compilation...

FRIDAY MUSIC: Dan Hicks, by JD

Dan Hicks, 1941-2016

As he admits, Dan Hicks was in the right place at the right time when, after moving from Arkansas to California as a child, then cutting his musical teeth in the US’ burgeoning folk clubs, he landed in 1966 San Francisco, where the counterculture was coalescing into the city’s psychedelic revolution. As drummer with The Charlatans, he played the acid-coated residency at Virginia City’s Red Dog Saloon credited with kickstarting 1967’s short-lived summer of love, but soon struck out to lead the old-time hothouse jazz of his Hot Licks.

http://www.danhicks.net/

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dan_Hicks_(singer)

https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/articles/2pfYcswtVB6ncdkd5PP0H2N/psychedelic-frontiersmen-how-dan-hicks-and-the-charlatans-licked-west-coast-rock-into-shape

Dan Hicks Remembered: 1941 - 2016

Dan Hicks & The Hot Licks-Canned Music

Dan Hicks & The Hot Licks-Payday

Dan Hicks and his Hot Licks on Flip Wilson

FRIDAY MUSIC: Chas & Dave (aka Rockney), by JD

Chas & Dave (often billed as Chas 'n' Dave) were an English pop rock duo, formed in London by Chas Hodges and Dave Peacock.

They were most notable as creators and performers of a musical style labelled rockney (a portmanteau of rock and cockney), which mixes "pub singalong, music-hall humour, boogie-woogie piano and pre-Beatles rock 'n' roll". For a time, Rockney was also the name of their record label, their major breakthrough being "Gertcha" in 1979, which peaked at No. 20 in the UK Singles Chart, and was the first of eight Top 40 hit singles the duo played on. They had their biggest success in the early 1980s with "Rabbit" and "Ain't No Pleasing You". They also had nine charting albums. In October 2013 they released That's What Happens, their first studio album in 18 years.
http://www.chasndave.net/chas-hodges/

Chas & Dave - Ain't No Pleasing You (Official HD Music Video)

Chas & Dave - Stars Over 45 (Official HD Music Video)

Tottenham Hotspur Squad & Chas & Dave - Ossie's Dream

Chas & Dave - Margate (Official HD Music Video)

Chas & Dave with Eric Clapton - Good Night Irene
From The Chas & Dave Christmas TV Special-1982.
Royal Club - Guildford, Surrey
Band:
Eric Clapton: Guitar
Albert Lee: Guitar
Chas Hodges: Piano
Dave Peacock: Bass
Mick Burt: Drums

WEEKEND MUSIC: Music and more, for Burns Night, by JD

Robert Burns (1759 - 1796) is Scotland's historic national bard. His life, poetry and songs are celebrated each year on his birthday, 25 January, with Burns Supper events featuring poetry, haggis, whisky and bagpipes.

Address tae The haggis by Harry MacFadyen

And here is the full text of 'the address' in the Scots dialest with a translation in English -
http://www.robertburns.org.uk/Assets/Poems_Songs/toahaggis.htm
- -
Some of Burns' lesser known poems are included in 'The Merry Muses of Caledonia' a collection of bawdy verse. Many scholars and Robert Burns enthusiasts prefer not to mention his association with the Merry Muses of Caledonia because they don't like him to be associated with this sort of material. Burns allegedly made no secret of his interest in erotic verse and bawdy song but apparently he kept this in a locked drawer at home. Well, you would, wouldn't you? http://www.robertburns.org.uk/merrymuses.htm

Ewan MacColl - What Can a Young Lassie Do Wi' an Auld Man? (Robert Burns)

Robert Burns - Last May A Braw Wooer (Gillian MacDonald)

- -
My Heart's in the Highlands.

Robyn Stapleton - Ae Fond Kiss

We end with possibly the most famous song in the world and this sublime version by Addi Reader -
Eddi Reader - Auld Lang Syne

FRIDAY MUSIC: The Swingsationals, by JD

The Swingsationals are French professional dancers and I cannot find anything about them in English but there is some information in French at these two links.

But who wants to read about them when you can watch such wonderful and enthusiastic dancing!
https://vintage-expo.com/the-swingsationals-a-vintage-expo
https://swingrennes.com/rennesbow/

The Swingsationals - Sing Sing Sing

Rennes-Bow Swing Festival 2022 - The Swingsationals - All That Jazz

The Swingsationals - Get Happy

The Swingsationals - You Deserve

Savoy Cup 2022 - Chorus Line - The Swingsationals

The Swingsationals - You Deserve

FRIDAY MUSIC: Osibisa, by JD

The group Osibisa was founded in 1969 in London and consisted at the time of its formation of Teddy Osei (saxophone), Max Tontoh (trumpet), Lasisi Amao (tenor saxophone, percussion), Sol Amarfio (drums), Robert Bailey (keyboard), Wendel Richardson (guitar) and Spartacus R (bass guitar).

The band members translate the band name loosely from Ghanaian as "criss cross rhythms that explode with happiness". They were considered the pioneers of world music from the mid-1970s and paved the way for other great artists like Bob Marley.

They had their first success with the song "Music for Gong Gong". This was shortly followed by "Sunshine Day", "Dance the Body Music" and "Coffee Song". Their album Woyaya rose to number 11 in the LP charts of the time and in the mid-1980s they built their own recording studio, a theatre complex and their own record label "Flying Elephant" in Ghana.

Osibisa - Music for Gong Gong

Osibisa the lost song : la ilah ila alah

Osibisa - Woyaya

OSIBISA - Why

Sunshine Day - OSIBISA