Right.

I’m off to Miyako Island for three days of drinking Awamori, eating mountains of Sushi and Oden and dazzling the in-laws with my new found Japanese language skills.

So I’m going to do an epic solo post now to tide me over.

I’m going to go for tracks that are ALL solo i.e the even less palatable category of the workout/jam. Before you start moaning just be thankful that I haven’t blogged any Steve Hillage. Yet.

Well, let’s start reasonably gently. Actually I dedicate this particular post to my Bro-In-Law, who’s a big lover of the epic jam* so…

I nominate this as Rother’s best solo outing. Starts off a bit like The Shadows then builds and builds. There’s a trembling slightly lachrymose quality to Rother’s guitar that always reminds me of Roy Orbison’s vocal, just on the point of spilling over…



And taking a slight leap folkward but staying with the cosmic/epic theme there’s this by John Martyn, in its eight minute version, ridiculously lovely, sheer echoplextasy. One World is a great album, as good as Solid Air or Inside Out, I reckon.

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Actually while we’re in a folky place I also like this. Not Richard Thompson, I’m sure we’ll get round to him later but (adopts Partridgean cadence) Pentangle! What I like about Pentangle is the way they deploy the electric guitar for decidedly non-maximal effect. Both here, and in the long Jack Orion it’s used to add colour and supplement and augment the song, not to overwhelm it or kick off cheap dynamics. It actually sounds physically tiny the guitar in this track, I imagine Bert Jansch or whoever’s playing it holding a bright red shiny toy guitar, which adds to the poignancy.

I was going to post Jack Orion originally but relented as it’s so long.

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All of which is mere prelude to this: Eddie Hazel doing the seemingly impossible.





Making life seem alright.







If anyone’s listening to this secretly in work first thing on a Monday morning, I salute you!



*cue comment's box pun