"MAGIC ONION" by THE LOVELY EGGS (2015)

After a couple of years mooching about the house not doing much, everyone’s favourite grin and grunge crackpots, the Lovely Eggs, are back with a new single, album and tour.

“Magic Onion” is the super 45 taster, accompanied in the best Lovely Eggs tradition by a suitably colourful and wonky video which you can see above. The tour began on Friday and ends on 9^th May, with an official launch party for the album, This Is Our Nowhere, taking place at the unlikely venue of London’s Jazz Café on Thursday 7^th May.

All that is exciting enough but even more so personally as Holly and David Egg have very kindly asked me to spin the platters at the launch party. Any tourists wandering in to the Jazz Café expecting an evening of New Orleans Dixieland or 70s style jazz fusion are going to be, well, confused I guess with songs about magic onions, green beans, beef bourguignon and sausage rolls thumbs. Bring it on. Just don’t expect an encore… 

For all your Eggy goodness, check out their site at The Lovely Eggs.

The Lovely Eggs play the Jazz Cafe, Camden on Thursday 7th May 2015 with support from Doglegs. Tickets here.  

THE IMPRESSIONS at the JAZZ CAFE

I wrote a gushing review of The Impressions' Barbican show last year so I’ll keep this brief but it would be remiss of me not to mention how wonderful they were again this time around.

Sam Gooden, Fred Cash and Reggie Torian performed with style, grace, dignity and soul and treated Curtis Mayfield’s songs with the utmost respect. “I’ve Been Trying” bought a lump to the throat and a tear to the eye; “Choice of Colors” wasn’t far behind with its gentle yet persuasive power; and the sermon during “People Get Ready” almost made a believer out of me. It was nothing short of a soul master class. I can still hear them by looking at this photo.

To my mind The Impressions are the greatest vocal group of all-time; their shows now - over half a century from when they began - only cement that thought. These are lasting Impressions.

BEN E. KING at the JAZZ CAFE, LONDON

He must be old. He’s 73, seeing how you asked, but could be older; not because of his appearance – he still cuts a dash in his light suit and dark shirt – but because “Stand By Me” seems to have been around forever and is everywhere. It’s in the night, the land, the moon, the sky, the mountains and the sea. When Ben E. King with Jerry Leiber and Mike Stoller wrote it at a piano in New York during 1960 they could’ve had no idea it would remain so omnipresent for much of the following 52 years (and counting).

According to the American performing rights organization, the BMI, it was the fourth most performed song of the 20th century with about 7 million performances. For all the countless versions (Wikipedia says over 400) and its familiarity, hearing it sung in a club by its creator is a surprisingly moving experience. There's something about live music that allows the listener to connect in ways not previously encountered, even on a song as simple and as uncluttered as “Stand By Me”.

What makes it surprising is it comes in an otherwise unremarkable set. King delivers what’s expected rather than what’s hoped, but I don’t blame him too much for giving the majority what they want. After all, he’s playing one of London’s most touristy venues and they don’t give a hoot when he sings Sam Cooke or Wilson Pickett hits at the expense of his own as the smell of burgers and chips waft down from the restaurant. If he was playing a northern soul weekender I’d hope for “Cry No More” or “I Can’t Break The News To Myself” but it still wouldn’t go amiss to heard his wonderful Drifters 45 “I Count The Tears” rather than a plodding version of “How Sweet It Is”.

He only spent two years in The Drifters and the average Joe has no idea which hits he sang on and which ones he didn’t, a fact exploited by King as he covers “Up On The Roof” and “On Broadway”. A recent Monkey Picks investigation discovered that an incredible 72% of black male singers over the age of 30 have at one time performed in a line-up calling themselves The Drifters. Every petrol station, discount book shop and charity shop has a Best of The Drifters CD on sale, all different cheap re-recordings by blokes with wet-look mullets and given a nasty makeover; not dissimilar to the supper club treatment most of the songs get tonight. The band knock out cabaret arrangements and whilst his two backing singers might be a pleasant distraction in other circumstances, here they are too up front, too intrusive and too annoying. The material from what he calls his Disco Years fares better with 1975’s “Supernatural Thing” cutting a rare groove.

For all that, it’s difficult to be harsh on King himself as he is still good. He's retained his natural, unforced baritone and a career spanning seven decades has taught him how to charm an audience. He smiles a big smile, has a twinkle in his eye, exchanges banter with the crowd, and comes across as a lovely fella (especially when he shakes my hand), yet I can’t help think he’s selling himself short. A sympathetic backing and some different material (even jazz and blues standards) would, I expect, be more satisfying for himself - if not the burger munchers of the Jazz Café.

MAVIS STAPLES at the JAZZ CAFE, LONDON

Seeing artists of a certain vintage fall into three categories: the “to be honest they were pretty crap but at least I can say I’ve seen them” category; the “they’re okay and played all their old hits”; and occasionally there’s the “instead of living off former glories they’re still moving forward and producing the goods”. Bob Dylan can straddle all three in a one night and Mavis Staples right now is proudly rooted in the third.

With a set consisting almost exclusively of her new album, You Are Not Alone , she is in commanding form, pushing herself with grace, dignity, infectious humour and fierce determination. For 60 years she’s worked audiences from the churches of Chicago, to civil rights marches, to large rock venues, so an intimate club gig like this is a doddle, yet everything looks so natural and not in the least contrived. There’s plenty of patter with the crowd and a smile and an aura of inspiration that radiates around her - she’s impossible not to love.

Old spirituals like “Creep Along, Moses” and “Wonderful Savior” stand shoulder to shoulder with well chosen covers of Little Milton’s “We’re Gonna Make It” and Creedence Clearwater Revival’s “I Wrote A Song For Everyone” whilst the fabulous album title track is the song of the year in my book. The Staple Singers had a happy knack of making gospel songs accessible to pop audiences and giving pop songs a gospel grounding and that tradition still holds.

Her band is a simple guitar, bass and drums three piece who subscribe to the less is more style of playing, leaving plenty of space of Mavis and her three backing singers – including Staples Singer sister Yvonne – to do their thing; although it only takes Mavis, a solitary guitar barely brushed, and Randy Newman’s “Losing You” to engulf the place in a reverential hush - apart from one dick at the bar to loudly exclaim “Ten quid for a glass of wine?!”

The only classics are “The Weight” and “I’ll Take You There” but it matters not. It's testament to Mavis I wouldn’t have it any other way.

BOOKER T at the JAZZ CAFE

Stood at the bar as Booker T. Jones performs soul classics he helped create isn’t the worse way to spend a Friday night. He was recording for Stax before it was even called Stax and as house band for the label Booker T & The MGs would feature on hundreds of hits (and misses) that defined the Memphis soul stew. Add to that the songs Jones wrote, arranged, performed and produced and you’ve got yourself a bona fide legend.

For all that, he is synonymous with “Green Onions” and that’s always going to be a defining moment whenever he plays. He plays it surprisingly early – third number in – to get it out of the way. It wasn’t just his Hammond organ that made that record so timeless, it was Steve Cropper’s sharp guitar slashes, Lewis Steinburg’s walking bass groove and Al Jackson Jr’s taut drum snaps. Beyond Booker’s playing not much survives. The economy of delivery replaced by the fussiness of his MG-less band who indulge in extreme eyes-closed guitar wanking.

“Born Under A Bad Sign” the song he co-wrote and played on for Albert King comes next and he takes on vocal duties. He’s a jobbing singer, nothing more, and hearing him strolling through “Hold On, I’m Coming”, “Ain’t No Sunshine”, “Take Me To The River” and “(Sittin’ On) The Dock Of The Bay” only shines a light on how much vitality Sam and Dave, Bill Withers, Otis Redding and co infused those recordings. It wouldn’t have gone a miss to hear him on organ on those rather than barely audible guitar either. He does thankfully give the Hammond a poke for “Soul Limbo”, “Time Is Tight” and “Melting Pot”. Whether “Melting Pot” is improved by a rapping drummer is doubtful.

I’m sounding very negative and grumpy but it wasn’t bad. It was just, you know, all right. I don’t like Booker T and the MGs any less now and after nearly fifty years in the business, achieving everything he has, I doubt he gives a monkey’s about some jumped up punk’s minor quibbles. And they are minor quibbles, like I say, seeing someone at close quarters who shaped so many records in your collection isn’t something to be too sniffy about.

THE JIM JONES REVUE at the JAZZ CAFE

Phil Alexander’s introductory testimony - “Please welcome the greatest rock and roll band in the world right now: The Jim Jones Revue” - has a ring of hyperbole about it, but after witnessing what comes next I challenge you to find a more exhilarating show than the one put on by these manic grizzled preachers.

Full throttle, foot to the floor, unrelenting, incendiary rock and roll to the max. And some. And a bit more. They don’t so much hit you with great balls of fire as knock your head clean off with the entire force of the sun dropping from the sky.

Had there been room to shake my moneymaker, I would’ve. Brilliant. That’s it.