Sting [Mercury Falling]

Sting has had a chequered solo career, he has made poor albums [The Soul Cages & Brand New Day], and then great albums [Ten Summoner's Tales & Mercury Falling], i've had a tendency to lose interest in him, as i really don't know what to expect next, Brand New Day was especially a great disappointment, it's put me off keeping track with him, but Mercury falling is his best album of all, full of a wonderful variety of musical styles.

Sting is now 59, yes, he'll hit the big 6-0 at the end of next year, everyone seems to be getting old, he made this album in 1996 in his mid forties, the front cover shot [by William Claxton] is exceptional, a grainy black and white study of sting, a nice side shot with gentle shadows to show depth, this album just scrapes into my top 100 discs of all time [at 93, as of today].

I really enjoyed listening to this disc today, it has lots of different music styles to it, and Sting has this ability to blend it all into one convincing whole, on this listen i liked tracks 2 'I Hung My Head', and track 11 'Lithium Sunset', 'I Hung My Head' always moves me to tears, it's a tragic story of unforgiveness and justice, but at the end of the song it becomes a story of forgiveness and redemption and release, a story of a guy who accidently shoots someone, comes to realize the extent of what he has done,

I orphaned his children

I widowed his wife

condemned to death, at the gallows a moment of magic happens,

I see a lone rider

Crossing the plain

He's come to fetch me

To see what they done

We'll ride together

Til kingdom come

it's the same guy he shot come to collect him after he's dead too, a real moment of forgiveness from the very person he wronged, it's a touching story of the power of the hereafter, the music's great too, a nice sharp but quickly dying drum beat throughout, right at the end of the second verse the horns [trumpet & saxophone] really kick in [1:48+], a real lovely jolt here, plus the organ swirls [Kenny Kirkland i take it] in at the same time, and is a great feature in every chorus afterwards [2:51+ & 4:02+ for instance], making a sort of gospel feel to it, right after the third verse Sting shout 'oww' [2:57], another nice little touch, but the whole album is strong, not just this one track, i would recommend this album to anyone coming to Sting afresh, and not knowing where to start.

Here's Sting singing 'I Hung My Head' on YouTube.

Joni Mitchell [Hejira] 

Hejira, the definition i guess is 'escape', or taking flight, the whole album seems to revolve around Joni Mitchell's wandering self, she's a traveller, and not just in geography, it documents her life on the road, she travelled over much of the United States alone, discovering herself, and a lot of her insights and observations found their way onto this album.

Joni Mitchell is Canadian, now 67, i feel very much after the seventies her songwriting abilities went downhill, she recorded this album in 1976, the booklet shows her on an ice skating rink [photos by Norman Seeff], and shows on the cover a montage of the road and sky, a sort of inner self of Joni's passion.

This is one of my most favourite albums, but it's not an easy listen, all the songs sound quite similar, with similar instrumentation, it therefore takes quite a while to discover the true individuality of each song, one of the things Joni Mitchell is famed for, is her imagery through words, she's a great songwriter, but she's a truly great words writer, there are dozens of gems on this album, it takes your breath away how she expresses herself, she makes you 'see' what she's singing about, here's the highlights i felt this time,

1 Coyote, she speaks about herself as 'a hitcher, a prisoner of the white lines on the freeway', and 'i tried to run away myself, to run away and wrestle with my ego ', she speaks of the freeway actually as a sort of prison, some cause that she can't free herself from.

2 Amelia, the best song on the album by far, she sings of Amelia Earhart, 'a ghost of aviation, she was swallowed by the sky, or by the sea, like me she had a dream to fly ', she likens herself to the solo female aviator, however her sky is the endless road, and like Amelia who is lost at sea trying to circle the globe and find herself, Joni gets lost on the road trying the same discovery across America.
3 Furry Sings The Blues, 'pawn shops glitter like gold tooth caps, in the grey decay', the old world music gets torn down to make way for the new and sparkling.
4 A Strange Boy, 

'a thousand glass eyes were staring, in a cellar full of antique dolls '.

5 Hejira, 'in the church they light the candles, and the wax rolls down like tears '.

6 Song For Sharon, the first track i fell in love with on this album, it's a whopping 8 minute plus track, and it reads like a story / travelogue.

7 Black Crow, 'i looked at the morning, after being up all night, i looked at my haggard face in the bathroom light '.

8 Blue Motel Room, 'here in Savannah it's pouring rain, palm trees in the porch light like slick black cellophane '.

9 Refuge Of The Roads, 'a photograph of the earth... that marbled bowling ball '.

Her words truly are revelatory, it makes me want to follow in her footsteps, hire a car and travel the breadth of the country.

Here's Joni Mitchell singing 'Amelia' on YouTube.

Tchaikovsky - Shakespeare Overtures [Serebrier-Bamberger Symphoniker]

Here's a disc which revolves around the theme of Shakespeare, Tchaikovsky wrote Fantasy Overtures for a number of Shakespeare writings, and it was a good idea to collect them onto a single disc, each Overture lasts roughly 20 minutes, so they have a sort of 'sibling-ness' to each other, children of the same father / Composer.

I'm glad BIS in recent years have got rid of their black booklets, everything was couched in a black background [very much like DG with their yellow theme], this is a great shot of Serebrier on the front cover, a lovely silhouette at the back, but a well lit face at the front, with some excellent shadows to show contours, the red background makes things stand out, and gives a dash of colour, the grey bar with the lettering and a vague portrait of Tchaikovsky, completes the visuals.

Jose Serebrier is from Uruguay, now 72, this disc was recorded in 1999.

Everyone seems to know the Romeo and Juliet Overture, but the other two Overtures on this disc are not so well known,

Here's Eliahu Inbal conducting The Tempest on YouTube.