Foggy Notion, Dr No, Ben E King and More …

howff /haʊf/. A favourite meeting place or haunt, especially a pub.

Welcome to the Howff, Bella’s boozer for the cultural void and your lounge for the lockdown. We are featuring and promoting artists and musicians who are now gigless cos of da virus. As everyone tries to move live events online and survive the domestic incarceration. Each night we feature a different artist and put up a bunch of other stuff.

Tonight we have episode 26 of Groove on Bella’s radio show for the lockdown brought to you by Stewart Bremner …

Episode 26 spans the years 1929-1987 and has quite a few big names including Johnny Cash, Ben E King and… Neil Diamond?

It begins with three fast-paced songs: ‘Forty Days’ by Ronnie Hawkins, a rock ’n’ roll number from the Woo-Hoo! The Roulette Story compilation, then Wilson Pickett’s biggest hit, ‘Land Of 1000 Dances’, and finally a funk 45, ‘Broadway Freeze’ by Harvey Scales & The Seven Sounds.

Next up are three random songs in a row. First is ‘Cherry, Cherry’ by Neil Diamond, then bebop meets Afro-Cuban jazz in ‘Manteca Theme’ by Dizzy Gillespie, followed by ‘Occupation’ by The Skatalites, based on Johnny Cash’s ‘Ring Of Fire’. Naturally Johnny Cash is next, with his Sun Records track ‘Home Of The Blues’ and that’s followed by a classic electric blues by Elmore James called ‘Shake Your Moneymaker’.

Two lesser-known tracks by well-known artists are next. ’Foggy Notion’ is a 1969 track by The Velvet Underground from VU, an album of music thought lost when it was released in 1985. ‘Supernatural Thing (Part 1)’ by Ben E. King comes from later in his career, when he was moving into a funky disco-ish sound.

Then it’s back to obscurities, with blue-eyed soul singer Beau Hannon who recorded the wonderfully-titled ‘You Stop Telling Lies About Me (I’ll Stop Telling The Truth About You)’ for Esk records in 1966. From blue eye-soul to blue-eyed jazz, with Dave Brubeck’s stripped down track ‘Unsquare Dance’ from 1961.

We go back to Afro-Cuban jazz with ‘El Pito (I’ll Never Go Back To Georgia)’ by Joe Cuba, which is based on Dizzy Gillespie’s ‘Manteca Theme’, heard earlier.

Three more random songs in a row come next, beginning with ‘You Always Stand In My Way’ by Aphrodite’s Child, a band formed by singer Demis Roussos and multi instrumentalist Vangelis. Then it’s ‘Chinese Arithmetic’, alt metal from Faith No More’s 1987 major label debut Introduce Yourself, followed by Sammy Salvo’s creepy blues ‘A Mushroom Cloud’.

The last group of three random songs in a row are ‘Blue Yodel #5’ recorded in 1929 by father of country music Jimmie Rodgers, ‘Guitar Lament’, a quiet moment from the soundtrack to From Russia With Love by John Barry and then ‘Pentangling’ by genre-defying jazzy folk rock group The Pentangle.

Next is all thirteen minutes of ‘Nu Slår En Blomma Ut’ by avant-garde Swedish jazz group Radio Jazz Gruppen Spektrum, from their only album, 1973’s Nocturne.

The episode ends with ‘Under The Mango Tree’ from Dr No, by Monty Norman featuring Diana Coupland on vocal and and Ernest Ranglin on guitar.