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David Meadows Profile
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The Fountain Of Useless Knowledge

Registered: 09-2003
Posts: 5670
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Re: My personal album chart


And so the alphabetical ramble inevitably comes back to "D" and that means:

Deep Purple - Scandinavian Nights (1970)

1 Wring That Neck *****
2 Speed King *****
3 Into the Fire ****
4 Paint it Black ****
5 Mandrake Root *****
6 Child in Time *****
7 Black Night ****

Album score: 96.1

The problem with these live Purple shows from 70/71 is that there's a great temptation to give everything five stars, but having half a dozen albums tied at #1 on 100% makes a meaningless chart. So I've been ruthless in my scoring and marked down as much as possible. And it still comes in at #4 in the chart because, honestly, this is near-perfect live music. A double CD with only 7 songs, because those songs are stretched out to 20 & 30 minute improvised jams without ever losing focus or being anything less than thrilling.

This was the best live band in the world, unmatched at the time and never bettered since. And this album is (almost) the best example of that. (The best example will be coming shortly...)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GMhAhYg26hk



---
"Music, shorn of labels and standing alone, when it is conceived, composed and performed with love and integrity, can elevate us all."
Jon Lord 1941 - 2012
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David Meadows Profile
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The Fountain Of Useless Knowledge

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Re: My personal album chart


Deep Purple - The BBC Sessions 1968 - 1970

1 Hush (version one) ****
2 One More Rainy Day ****
3 Help! ****
4 And The Address ****
5 Hey Bop A Re Bop ***
6 Emmaretta ***
7 Wring That Neck ****
8 (Brian Matthew interviews Rod Evans) -
9 Hey Joe ****
10 It's All Over ****
11 The Painter (version one) ***
12 Lalena ****
13 The Painter (version two) ****
14 I'm So Glad ****
15 Hush (version four) ****
1 Ricochet ****
2 Bird Has Flown ****
3 Speed King ****
4 Jam Stew (aka John Stew) ****
5 Hard Lovin' Man *****
6 Bloodsucker ****
7 Living Wreck (version two) ****
8 (Brian Matthew interviews Jon Lord) -
9 Black Night ****
10 Grabsplatter ****
11 Into The Fire ****
12 Child In Time *****

Album score: 75.0

All the surviving live sessions that the band recorded for the BBC. The needs of radio obviously constrains the band and these fall a long way short (in time, if nothing else) of true in-concert versions, but there's still an energy and freshness that makes them an interesting alternative to the album version, and worth suffering the occasional ropey recording quality and annoying DJ voice-overs.

Non-fans might wonder why you need so many different versions of the same songs. Fans will just wish that even more of them had survived :-)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5K5WAlFWWMs



---
"Music, shorn of labels and standing alone, when it is conceived, composed and performed with love and integrity, can elevate us all."
Jon Lord 1941 - 2012
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David Meadows Profile
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The Fountain Of Useless Knowledge

Registered: 09-2003
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Re: My personal album chart


Deep Purple - Gemini Suite Live (1970)

1 First Movement - Guitar ****
2 Second Movement - Organ ***
3 Third Movement - Voice *****
4 Fourth Movement - Bass *****
5 Fifth Movement - Drums *****
6 Sixth Movement - Finale *****

(Note: I'm listing the movements as they are actually played, not how the liner notes lists them.)

Album score: 89.3

Jon Lord's second large-scale experiment with combining a rock group and orchestra. It's a mixed bag. His orchestra writing is more adventurous, but it doesn't always work and sometimes (e.g., ironically, Lord's own solo movement) loses its way. But while some parts are weak, other parts I think I like even better than the original Concerto for Group and Orchestra. It's not their best work overall, but it's still grabbed a place for itself in my top 10 albums.

This is just edited highlights but I think it gives the idea:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GBoYu4IHx0c


---
"Music, shorn of labels and standing alone, when it is conceived, composed and performed with love and integrity, can elevate us all."
Jon Lord 1941 - 2012
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RatBatBlu Profile
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Purple fan

Registered: 08-2012
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Re: My personal album chart


Do you have both versions of the Gemini Suite? Its interesting to hear the differences between the two. I like Jon's part on the second version, but I prefer the rest of the solos from the DP version.
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David Meadows Profile
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The Fountain Of Useless Knowledge

Registered: 09-2003
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Re: My personal album chart


I never did get the studio version of the Gemini Suite. There was a CD release just a few years ago wasn't there? I must get it and plug the hole in my Jon Lord collection.



Meanwhile, something completely different:


Sandy Denny - The North Star Grassman and The Ravens (1971)

1 Late November ****
2 Blackwaterside ***
3 The Sea Captain ***
4 Down In The Flood **
5 John The Gun ****
6 Next Time Around **
7 The Optimist **
8 Let's Jump The Broomstick ***
9 Wretched Wilbur **
10 The North Star Grassman and the Ravens ***
11 Crazy Lady Blues ***

Album score: 45.0

I love Sandy Denny's voice and I really want to rate this, her first solo album, higher. But the choice of material is all over the place, and while I admire her for fearlessly singing whatever takes her fancy, it makes me wish she had stuck with her collaborators in Fairport or Fotheringhay and produced another solid folk album.

Or just more of this:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PQiWL0HfIJs




---
"Music, shorn of labels and standing alone, when it is conceived, composed and performed with love and integrity, can elevate us all."
Jon Lord 1941 - 2012
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The Fountain Of Useless Knowledge

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Re: My personal album chart


The Elizabethan Session - The Elizabethan Session (2014)

1 The Shores of Hispaniola *****
2 London ****
3 Christopher Marlowe ****
4 Love-in-Idleness ****
5 Eve's Apology in Defence of Women / Gather the Owls *****
6 Broadside *****
7 Elizabeth Spells Death ****
8 Come Live with Me *****
9 The Straight Line and the Curve ****
10 True Love's Knot Untied / The Great Hall *****
11 The Mornington Pavane / Ortiz Ground ****
12 The Oak Casts His Shadow ****
13 Hatfield *****
14 Suspicious Mind ***

Album score: 83.9

This is the 200th album since I started doing this ranking system, and against all odds it's a 2014 album by a brand new band, *and* it's in at number 14 in my chart.

This is a one-off project that mixes old and new words and old and new tunes, performed by a supergroup of eight folk musicians, all of them singers and multi-instrumentalists. The variety of styles here stretches the definition of folk music far beyond what most people would think it is, and of course that's the sort of thing I love.

They only played four gigs. I was at this one:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kOZNiByZ3mY




---
"Music, shorn of labels and standing alone, when it is conceived, composed and performed with love and integrity, can elevate us all."
Jon Lord 1941 - 2012
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David Meadows Profile
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The Fountain Of Useless Knowledge

Registered: 09-2003
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Re: My personal album chart


Fairport Convention - Liege & Lief (1969)

1 Come All Ye ****
2 Reynardine ****
3 Matty Groves *****
4 Farewell, Farewell ****
5 The Deserter ****
6 The Lark in the Morning/Rakish Paddy/Foxhunters' Jig/Toss the

Feathers ****
7 Tam Lin *****
8 Crazy Man Michael ****

Album score: 81.3

In which a minor rock band called Faiport Convention reinvented themselves, reinvented folk music, and invented the genre of folk rock. It can't be stressed enough how "important" this album was, and it continues to win awards and polls to this day to prove it. But that's actually irrelevant -- what matters is that this album just sounds fantastic, and everybody should own a copy just because of that.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4FuaSdOdpzw




---
"Music, shorn of labels and standing alone, when it is conceived, composed and performed with love and integrity, can elevate us all."
Jon Lord 1941 - 2012
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David Meadows Profile
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The Fountain Of Useless Knowledge

Registered: 09-2003
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Re: My personal album chart


Heather Findlay - Songs from the Old Kitchen (2012)

1 Find the Sun ****
2 Flowers for Guns ****
3 Black Rain ****
4 This Game ****
5 Half a World ****
6 Unoriginal Sin ****
7 Seven ****
8 Red Dust ****
9 Mona Lisa ****
10 Above the Blue *****

Album score: 77.5

Acoustic, semi-live (done-in-one-take) re-workings of songs from Heather's back catalogue. The music is beautiful, and re-affirms that she's my favourite current singer. I just wish she would write new material a bit faster.

Live version of the best song here:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mSCuVVBTgNE


---
"Music, shorn of labels and standing alone, when it is conceived, composed and performed with love and integrity, can elevate us all."
Jon Lord 1941 - 2012
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David Meadows Profile
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The Fountain Of Useless Knowledge

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Re: My personal album chart


Flying Colors - Flying Colors (2014)

1 Blue Ocean ****
2 Shoulda Coulda Woulda ****
3 Kayla ****
4 The Storm *****
5 Forever in a Daze ****
6 Love is What I'm Waiting For ****
7 Everything Changes *****
8 Better than Walking Away ****
9 All Falls Down ****
10 Fool in My Heart ****
11 Infinite Fire *****

Album score: 83.3

Flying Colors is a modern rock supergroup, five musicians from different backgrounds with different styles and a result that's better than the sum of the parts. Brilliant musicians with great material -- deservedly a top 20 album.

Live version of Everything Changes:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yYlmOElYHUE



---
"Music, shorn of labels and standing alone, when it is conceived, composed and performed with love and integrity, can elevate us all."
Jon Lord 1941 - 2012
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David Meadows Profile
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The Fountain Of Useless Knowledge

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Re: My personal album chart


The Furrow Collective - At Our Next Meeting (2014)

1 Wild and Wicked Youth ***
2 King Henry **
3 Skippin' Barfit Through the Heather ****
4 The Outlaw of the Hill ***
5 Henry Lee ***
6 Wondrous Love ***
7 Hind Horn ****
8 Handsome Molly ****
9 Our Captain Calls ****
10 Johnny My Man ***
11 Demon Lover ***
12 The Blantyre Explosion ****
13 I'd Rather Be Tending My Sheep ****

Album score: 59.6

Four folk singers singing traditional songs in pretty traditional arrangements, no frills or gimmicks, just great songs sung properly.

Live versions, because we like live versions better:

Rachel Newton singing:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RFfhJCZzWuY

Lucy Farrell singing, Rachel playing harp:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=evI_FxtGOgk

---
"Music, shorn of labels and standing alone, when it is conceived, composed and performed with love and integrity, can elevate us all."
Jon Lord 1941 - 2012
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