If you had to choose just one artist to listen to each day who would you choose?
I decided to go try and go through the alpahbet. In the first week I would listen to a different artist each day starting with the letter A, and so on. Here’s my progress to date:
Carol King: An immensely popular singer-songwriter in the 1970s especially with her album Tapestry. She was certainly my most played female artist at the time. It was good to go back and listen to some of it again.
Lee Konitz: A new jazz artist for me, American born in 1927. Some good stuff in his discography.
Aram Khachaturian: I was struggling to think of a composer for K until Margaret came up with Khachaturian, remembering that his Adagio from Spartacus became the theme tune for the Onedin Line. Khachaturian uses folk tune influences in his compositions. He was born and is Tbilisi, Georgia to Armenian parents and is buried in Yerevan, Armenia.
Kris Kristoffenson: It took me years to discover Kris Kristoffenson for some unknown reason but I really like his country/folk music mix.
Michael Kiwanuka: Got to thank one of our boys for introducing us to the music of Michael Kiwanuka a few years back. A good find.
Kaiser Chiefs: Good high tempo stuff from this British band from the early noughties.
Mark Knopfler: The Dire Straits lead guitarist. We had a couple of his albums but hadn’t realised he had so many. I particularly like his work with Emmylou Harris.
Elton John: Honky Cat was the first single I purchased along with Bill Withers’s Lean On Me. I’ve seen Elton twice live but neither planned. Once he came on in the encore of an Eagles concert in Wembley Areana. Then in 2007 I saw him play a free concert in Independence Square, Kyiv.
Martyn Joseph: A Welsh folk singer I hadn’t come across until recently when I heard about someone going to see a concert of his locally. Also a very good golfer!
Joe Jackson: Someone I associate with appearing at the end of the punk era. Still releasing music and touring.
Janis Joplin: Two errors in a day here. First I got off a bus at Tredegar Park thinking I was going to Tredegar House. Then I listened to Janis Joplin thinking I was going to listen to Scott Joplin. Both worked out OK in the end.
Billy Joel: US singer-songwriter. Just had to be reminded that I have seen him play live at the NEC, far too big a venue to fully appreciate someone like that.
Norah Jones: Must admit I hadn’t even appreciated that Norah Jones was American. Nice gentle stuff.
Karl Jenkins: Another composer I hadn’t heard of until I was looking for a ‘K’. Shame on me – he’s even Welsh, and from the Gower. He used to be in the band Soft Machine. The Swedish influence in his music comes from his Swedish grandfather.
Dafydd Iwan: Welsh folk singer and politician. His song ‘Yma o Hyd’ (Still Here) has become somewhat of a football and other sporting anthem in recent years.
Jacques Ibert: Modern French composer but surprisingly melodic for someone so modern. I liked him. He he has written for a range of instruments.
Incredible String Band: I didn’t get on with them if I’m honest. Not melodic enough for me.
Abdullah Ibrahim: South African musician. I liked his jazz but was less keen on some of the other influences.
Gregory Isaacs: You just can’t beat a day of reggae once every couple of weeks.
Iron & Wine: American folk-rock singer songwriter with country influence I would say. New to me and a winner.
Isley Brothers: Put them in as I was struggling on artists starting with ‘I’ and enjoyed them more than I thought I was going to.
Joseph Haydn: I’ve always pronounced his name Hi Den and nobody has corrected me. Maybe because I don’t say it very often. Cheerful music. Must admit I was torn between Haydn and Handel. He’ll have to wait till the next time around.
Emmylou Harris: Is she folk or is she country, I never quite know, but I know I like he. Currently on her farewell tour apparently. Never caught her live.
Half Man Half Biscuit: Known for their satirical, sardonic, and sometimes surreal songs. Listened to with the lyrics scrolling which helped a lot.
Jools Holland: He’s become a bit marmitey, I think because his New Years Eve TV show upsets some. Saw him once with Squeeze on college in the 70s and with his band in the 90s.
Isaac Hayes: Picked him in error – I was thinking of someone else but can’t work out whom. Anyways, Isaac was just fine.
Frank Hennessy / The Hennessys: A Cardiff folk singer of Irish background. Hosts a fine weekly folk programme on BBC Radio Wales.
Hozier: An Irish singer from Bray, Ireland. Hard to pin down his genre with lots of influences coming through.
Vin Garbutt: An English folk artist from the north-east. Quite an unusual voice. Had never come across him until about 12 years ago when he played Coventry. Sadly he is no longer with us.
Greig: His music gently ambles along and then suddenly gets angry. Reminds me of when I’m out for a quiet walk and someone walks towards me on the wrong side of the path expecting me to jump out of the way.
Stan Getz: Another nice dose of gentle jazz saxophone to bring calmness to the day. Will have to go back to Stan. Enjoyed him a lot.
Arlo Guthrie: Son of Woody. American folk singer. He is very fond of his story telling and as a result tricky to listen to for a whole day. May be I should have chosen his dad.
Goldie Lookin Chain: A Welsh comedy hip-hop group from Newport. Best watched on YouTube. Some classic songs about Cwmbran and Newport. But didn’t manage a whole day of them!
Eddy Grant: From Guyana and plays happy catchy songs. Got into a spat with Donald Trump who used ‘Walking on Sunshine’ in this presidential campaign.
David Gray: UK singer-songwriter. White Ladder, one of tose albums we used to playe late at night in the 1990s.
Fairport Convention: The folk rock band that seem to have been around forever. Never made it to their annual Chiropody Festival but did catch them in Cardiff a few years ago.
Giacomo Facco: I was struggling to find a classical composer starting with the letter G but ended up finding a real gem in Giacomo Facco. He was an Italian Baroque violinist, conductor and composer. One of the most famous Italian composers of his day, he was completely forgotten until 1962. I liked him.
Fleetwood Mac: Rumours, an album/tape many of us probably wore out in the 1970s.
Elin Fflur: A Welsh singer now does a lot of TV and radio broadcasting.
Paloma Faith: We went to see her in Cardiff some years ago. Didn’t quite enjoy the music this week as much as I thought I was going to.
Ella Fitzgerald: Opposite to yesterday in that I enjoyed a day of Ella more than I had anticipated.
Fairground Attraction: Scottish folk and soft rock band. Not a large back catalogue but good to hear their early stuff again.
Edward Elgar: To me his music always sounds like it’s building up to something but never quite getting there. You could say he’s a bit of an enigma.
Eagles: Pretty much my favourite American 70’s band. Saw them once play Wembley Arena when Elton John came on as a guest to play encore with them. It finished so late we missed the last train back to Swansea so had to wait for the ‘milk train’ going back to Wales.
George Ezra: There was me thinking I was being all modern until Margaret reminded me he goes back a bit now.
Duke Ellington: Jazz pianist and orchestra leader. About time we had a bit of jazz piano after all that saxophone 😉
Tim Edey: Award-winning folk singer/composer who plays a multitude of instruments. Now bases himself in Scotland.
Earth Wind and Fire: Time for a bit of funk I thought. Not a band I ued to follow but nice for a change of genre.
Enekk: Brining back memories of our trip to the Faroe Islands in search of a pint of Guinness. Enekk is a highly regarded Faroese folk and jazz band known for blending traditional music with modern sounds.
Bob Dylan: A great way to start the week. Long been a Dylan fan. Loved the biopic ‘The Complete Unknown’ last year. Enjoyed him live at Earls Court and Blackbush Aerodrome in ‘78, less so in Birmingham years later when he did his thing of changing the tunes etc.
Dvořák: Czech composer influenced by folk apparently.
Dire Straits: Good to listen to with the volume turned up.
Eddie ‘Lockjaw’ Davies: Jazz saxophonist of varying styles. If you hunt around in his discography there’s some good mellow stuff in there.
Duffy: Welsh female vocalist with heavy jazz and soul influences. She has had a traumatic life which has unfortunately curtailed her musical output.
Doobie Brothers: I’m not going to introduce myself to new music if I keep playing these old classics. Another album where its good to turn up the volume.
Emily Duff: New York singer-songwriter with heavy country and soul. Saw her play live in a friend’s back garden last year.
Leonard Cohen: When I had my record collection stolen in the 1980s my joke used to be that I had the last laugh as there must be some very depressed burglars around as the collection included my Leonard Cohen albums.
Frédéric Chopin: Relaxing Chopin – something to do to the vegetables before cooking them. I never saw him live but did see him dead, or at least a part of him. After his death in Paris his heart was taken back to Poland and is buried inside a church in Warsaw.
CMAT: An Irish singer who goes by a shortened version of her name Ciara Mary-Alice Thompson. A good recommendation from the younger family members. Meaningful lyrics.
CSNY: Crosby, Stills, Nash and Young. Good harmonies from the 1970s. I’ve seen one of them live but can’t recall which one – that’s age for you! Crosby or Nash I think.
Clash: Memories of a mate playing this album to death when we lived in halls of residence. They played Swansea University live in May 1977. Still got the poster.
Conspiritas: The jazz offering this week was trio of Carolyn Ward on vocals, friend Paul Mason on sax/flute and Neville Cooper on guitar. Soothing stuff.
Cynefin: Welsh folk from Owen Shires, son of musician and harp maker Alan Shires.
J.S.Bach: I do like a bit of harpsichord music. Not too much. J.S.Bach wrote for all sorts of instruments and always melodic and cheery. I like that.
The Band: The Last Waltz is a smashing triple album of their last concert – or was it? I recall going to see the Martin Scorsese film of the concert in a cinema in Swansea when it came out in 1978.
David Bowie: I wouldn’t claim to be a dyed-in-the-wool Bowie fan, more a greatest hits fan, but it was good to listen to his back catalogue for a day.
Tore Brunborg: I was introduced to the sound of Norwegian jazz saxophonist Tore Brunborg when friend Paul Mason put together a great programme of tenor saxophonists for Malmesbury Community Radio back in 2020.
Jackson Browne: US singer song-writer though actually born in Germany and his mother, of Norwegian descent, came from Minnesota whose maiden name was Dahl. Saw in perform live when I lived in Minnesota.
Shirley Bassey: Nice to hear a bit of Shirl every so often. What a voice. Provokes very mixed reactions here in her hometown of Cardiff. Some love her whilst others felt she abandoned bit birthplace.
Beautiful South. Wrote some great tunes!
Joan Armatrading: I do like female singer-songwriters. The advantages of this challenge immediately showed through. There is a lot of her catalogue I’ve never listened to and it’s good. The only artist in this first week I have seen live and we were both far from home – Northrop Auditorium in Minneapolis. I always thought she came from Birmingham but she was born in Saint Kitts and Nevis. An intensely private person with a BA in history.
Aswad: I also like a bit of reggae sometimes, but maybe a whole day of it is a bit much. I recall someone having an Aswad album in college and then forgot about them, only rediscovering them in later life. A London based group where their reggae has other influences in it such as R&B.
‘Cannonball’ Adderley: An American jazz saxophonist who died too young at 46. He covered a wide range of jazz genres some of which I like a lot more than others.
America: When people ask me what type of music I like then I invariably answer folk-rock. America was always one of my favorites, though I never caught them live. Maybe they didn’t leave America that often. I wonder if they have found a name for that horse yet?
Adwaith: By this stage in the week word was getting out about this challenge and the family were starting to chip in with suggestions. Adwaith are a Welsh indie-rock band from Carmarthen meaning ‘reaction’ in English. Good lively stuff.
Brian Auger: Jazz and rock pianist who used to play with Rod Stewart and Julie Driscoll (Wheels on Fire) and jammed with Clapton and Hendrix in his time. ‘Live at Bogies’ was my most played album this year according to Spotify. I haven’t seen him live but he has seen me perform. His uncle was Capt George Auger – The World’s Tallest Man, a subject of one of my talks. I first gave the talk during Covid by Zoom and Brian joined from his home in California. He’d only vaguely heard about George Auger previously and the family connection London born but still going strong in California at the age of 82. A charming man.
AnnenMayKantereit: Another good suggestion from the family. A German band singing in both German and English. My Spotify predicted age which this year was 82 will be falling like a stone at this rate.
Cardiff Capers 