My Heroes (42 ): Rosalind Franklin

This is also a series that I have ignored for a while. I started it eleven years ago....
The name of Rosalind Elsie Franklin (1920 - 1958) should be as well-known to us as those of James Watson and Frances Crick who were awarded a Nobel Prize for their discovery of the structure of DNA but it is not. She died at the tragically young age of 37 of ovarian cancer. That, however, is not the only tragedy in this story.

I like this picture of Rosalind as a young woman; actually she was only ever young.

Her inspirational work as a x-ray crystallographer had set Crick and Watson on the road to discovering the double-helix structure of DNA in 1953. They based their research on her earlier findings. They were awarded the Nobel Prize along with Maurice Wilkins in 1962 but the prize is never given posthumously so Rosalind was never properly recognised. It is a matter of conjecture whether she would have shared the award anyway; she was shamefully treated by her male colleagues at the time which was the norm in the 1950s. She was not a feminist and was not known to have complained about her lot. Maybe if she had been born after the war things may have been different. 

Franklin was born to a prominent Jewish family in Notting Hill, London in 1920 and excelled as a student, later studying at Cambridge University.

X-ray crystallography is the branch of science that is able to show the shape of objects at the atomic and molecular level. It was a famous photograph known as 'Photo 51', taken under her direction, that led to the the double helix discovery.

Photo 51

She is buried at Willesden Jewish cemetery in north London. (Where, incidentally the prayer hall has just been given Grade II listed status by English Heritage.) This is the inscription on her tombstone:

IN MEMORY OF

ROSALIND ELSIE FRANKLIN

מ' רחל בת ר' יהודה

DEARLY LOVED ELDER DAUGHTER OF

ELLIS AND MURIEL FRANKLIN

25TH JULY 1920 – 16TH APRIL 1958

SCIENTIST

HER RESEARCH AND DISCOVERIES ON

VIRUSES REMAIN OF LASTING BENEFIT

TO MANKIND

ת נ צ ב ה 

[Hebrew initials for "her soul shall be bound in the bundle of life"]

PS: I have just realised something that must have drawn me to Rosalind Franklin: she was born and died in the same years as my own mother who died of thyroid cancer which was untreatable in 1958 - and she looked like Rosalind!

I'm listening (appropriately for this post!) to the beautiful and very moving Chorus of the Hebrew Slaves from Verdi's opera Nabucco.
Click HERE to listen. The whole cast appear to be visibly moved by the event.

Fitzrovia, London

Fitzrovia is an informal area in central London, north of Oxford Street and consisting of less a square kilometre of prime property and possessing a rich history. The area is named after the Fitzroy Tavern, a pub situated on the corner of Charlotte Street and Windmill Street within the district. The name was adopted during the inter-war years, initially by and later in recognition of, the artistic and bohemian community habitually found at the public house. Inside there are photos of Dylan Thomas, Augustus John, Jacob Epstein and George Orwell among others, seen drinking there. The name Fitzroy comes from Old French meaning "son of the King", generally being the name given to a King's illegitimate offspring.

Fitzroy Square, designed by Robert Adam, is  one of the finest in London.
It is often used as a feature film and TV drama location especially as it traffic-free.

The garden in the centre of Fitzroy Square is private; all the residents have a key. However, you can admire a sculpture by Naomi Blake just inside the railings - see my post about her HERE. Two sides of the square are faced with Portland stone, like many of the important buildings in central London. Because of the intervention of the Napoleonic wars the later sides were finished in stucco plaster due to financial restrictions. 

Charlotte Street is famed for it's restaurants, many of them are long-established.

Many famous residents have lived in the Square including Virginia Wolff and George Bernard Shaw (same house - different times; what a couple that would have been!)
The King and Queen pub in Foley Street (where Charles Dickens once lived) is where, in 1962, Time Out magazine said one of the most important gigs of all time was played. That was where Bob Dylan played outside of the USA for the first-ever time.  
Charlotte Street is famous for restaurants and the Scala cinema and theatre, since demolished, is where the concert and some exterior scenes of The Beatles 'A Hard Days Night' were filmed.

Many media companies are based in the area now and the most famous of these, since relocated, was Saatchi and Saatchi. They grew to be the world's largest advertising agency while they were based there.  Famous Fitzrovia residents have included Robert Louis Stevenson, James McNeill Whistler, Roger Fry, Guy Ritchie and the novelist Ian McEwen. Madonna has lived there and Lady Gaga bought a place with a roof garden five years ago.

Colville Place, Fitzrovia. Photo: Silver Tiger
I'm listening to  Amy Winehouse singing 
Will You Still Love Me Tomorrow?
We really lost the very best when she died.
Click HERE to listen.

Saucy British Seaside Postcards (2)

While scrolling through some of the stats for this Blog, I noticed that one of the most popular posts was one in 2010 about saucy British seaside postcards. It's a tradition that is still going strong! So I have decided, for no good reason, to show some more. To see the original post click HERE.

The French, of course, have a different perspective on this topic!

I'm listening to my favourite Beatles song

Strawberry Fields Forever. See if you can hear the point where two different versions of the song were brilliantly spliced together by George Martin and the studio engineers.Listen by clicking here.

Painting of the Month (73) July 2017: Alphonse Mucha

Alphonse Mucha was born in Moravia (now in the Czech Republic) in 1860. He is most famous as a designer of posters, postcards and advertisements that epitomised the Art Nouveau movement. He also painted fine art pictures in a similar style.

We had this 1897 poster in our dining room when first married many years ago.

Poster art is sometimes seen as something inferior - wrongly, in my view. Mucha created a huge number of advertising posters in a similar style to this one, which are instantly recognisable as his work. Art Nouveau, which is one of my favourite art movements, embodied the perfect meeting of art and design. In the late 1800’s art was everywhere and everywhere you looked it was Nouveau. The English Arts & Crafts movement was a major influence on the style as were the contemporary Japanese artists.

Mucha's Jewish roots and Slav nationalism made him a target of the Gestapo after the invasion of Czechoslovakia in 1939 and he died of a chest infection in Prague that year.

I am listening to John Williams playing Vals Criollo by Antonio Lauro Click HERE to listen to this beautiful piece of music

Sonnets

The word sonnet is derived from the Italian word “sonetto”. It means "a little song or lyric". In poetry, a sonnet has 14 fourteen lines and is written in iambic pentameter. That is to say that it has five pairs of double beats, or ten syllables, in each line. It has a specific rhyme scheme and a 'volta' or a turning point.

Generally, sonnets are divided into different groups based on the rhyme scheme they follow. The rhyme scheme in the English form is usually abab-cdcd-efef-gg and in Italian its abba-abba-cde-cde. So, you can see that the poems are generally arranged as three groups of four lines and one final pair in the English version and a group of eight lines followed by six lines in the Italian or 'Petrachan' version.

Probably the most famous English sonnet is this one:
Sonnet XVIII   by William Shakespeare

Shall I compare thee to a summer’s day?

Thou art more lovely and more temperate.

Rough winds do shake the darling buds of May,

And summer’s lease hath all too short a date.

Sometime too hot the eye of heaven shines,

And often is his gold complexion dimmed;

And every fair from fair sometime declines,

By chance, or nature’s changing course, untrimmed;

But thy eternal summer shall not fade,

Nor lose possession of that fair thou ow’st,

Nor shall death brag thou wand’rest in his shade,

When in eternal lines to Time thou grow’st.

So long as men can breathe, or eyes can see,

So long lives this, and this gives life to thee.

The 'volta' in this sonnet, as is usual in the English form, is before the final couplet of two lines. The poet uses the first 12 lines to address his lover but he finally addresses the whole readership. It's a kind of summing up of the whole thing.

Sonnet 159    by Francesco Petrarca, commonly known as Petrarch
In what bright realm, what sphere of radiant thought
Did Nature find the model whence she drew
That delicate dazzling image where we view
Here on this earth what she in heaven wrought?
What fountain-haunting nymph, what dryad, sought
In groves, such golden tresses ever threw
Upon the gust? What heart such virtues knew?—
Though her chief virtue with my death is fraught.
   He looks in vain for heavenly beauty, he
   Who never looked upon her perfect eyes,
   The vivid blue orbs turning brilliantly –
   He does not know how Love yields and denies;
   He only knows, who knows how sweetly she
   Can talk and laugh, the sweetness of her sighs.

In the first eight lines the poet asks a series of questions about love and in the final six lines he laments that he has not known love and, there again, the volta in the last two lines.

.

And finally a modern sonnet:

Faint Praise by Wendy Cope

Size isn’t everything. It’s what you do 

That matters, darling, and you do it quite well

In some respects. Credit where credit’s due –
You work, you’re literate, you rarely smell.
Small men can be aggressive, people say,
But you are often genial and kind,
As long as you can have things all your way
And I comply, and do not speak my mind.
You look all right. I’ve never been disgusted
By paunchiness. Who wants some skinny youth?
My friends have warned me that you can’t be trusted
But I protest I’ve heard you tell the truth.
   Nobody’s perfect. Now and then, my pet,

   You’re almost human. You could make it yet.

 (from Two Cures for Love: Selected Poems 1979-2006, 2008)

And once more there is a 'killer' volta in the final couplet!

.

In my last post I featured the late Kirsty MacColl singing A New England. This time I am listening to her father, the English folk singer Ewam MacColl singing his most famous song Dirty Old Town. He was married to Peggy Seeger, half-sister of Pete Seeger.Click the title to listen (to either song!)

Doors and Windows (3): Balham, London

The last post in this series was five years ago so I can say  that it's fairly infrequent!

This photo is borrowed, with permission, from Philip Wilkinson's excellent
ENGLISH BUILDINGS Blog.      See  http://englishbuildings.blogspot.co.uk/

I am a big fan of English brickwork and the Edwardian and late Victorian suburban streets of London are a bountiful place to see it on display. The beautifully ornate porch and windows are also typical of the period. Many of the houses have black and white or terracotta tiled paths as well. Philip points out in his post that Balham seems to have plenty of houses using Suffolk white bricks as well as the more usual red, brown and yellow.

Many of these house have glorious stained-glass windows in the doors and porches. Sadly many of these are being replaced with modern double-glazed, clear replacements. This includes the one that I featured here.

Modern houses seem to be all about utility which is fair enough but I think we have lost something by not celebrating both the skills of the craftsmen and the aesthetic appeal of recent bygone times.

Other examples of tiled paths of the same era
I'm listening to Kirsty MacColl singing
Billy Bragg's A New England

Painting of the Month (72) June 2017: Lucian Freud

Lucian Freud was the grandson of Sigmund Freud, the father of psychoanalysis, so it is perhaps not surprising that he started his painting career working as a surrealist but soon switched to a kind of expressionist realism. He was a very private man and painted only those close to him, portraits of his friends and family and in a major way, of himself. In fact he was obsessed about self-portraiture.

Self Portrait, Lucian Freud, 1985

He has provided a comprehensive, unflattering history over many decades. And not only of himself; he managed to make the model, Kate Moss, appear ugly! He is known for "unflinching observations of anatomy and psychology". Once established his style did not really change much over six decades. It seems to have been inevitable that the long, intense sessions with his sitters have led to comparison with the way that his grandfather, Sigmund, worked.
Although Freud eschewed the avant-garde of his contemporaries, such as David Hockney, he was strikingly unusual in his detailed depiction of genitalia and secondary sexual characteristics in general. His explicit  illustrations showed the same level of detail that a botanical painter of flowers might show. 
He is regarded as one of the leading self-portraitists of the twentieth century. He did not -exhibit the range of earlier self-portraitists such as Rembrandt or Van Gogh but he revealed psychological insights into all of his subjects in a new way.

Freud with Kate Moss and his painting of her

I'm listening to Loudain Wainwright III, a much underrated singer-songwriter whose searing honesty sometimes makes me wince when I listen to his songs. Here is a song about his time living in London: Primrose Hill. Have a listen.

The Royal Parks of London (2): Regent's Park

There are eight Royal parks in central London, five of which are central : St James, Green Park, Hyde Park, Kensington Gardens and Regent's Park. The land had formerly been owned by the Monarchy and now, as Crown Property, are open public spaces. Every one of them is superbly kept at considerable public expense and extremely popular with tourists and Londoners alike. Each has it's own unique character.

London has over 40% of green space - one of the highest percentages in the world.  Regents Park with Primrose Hill to the north is shown in orange. The black area is London Zoo, within the the park.  The map represents an area about 35 miles across!

It was laid out in the early 1800s by the architect John Nash. He had a plan to build an arc of 56 grand classical villas around the northern Outer Circle Road. Only nine were ever completed displaying a mix of classical orders. Also in the park is Winfield House built for the Woolworth's heiress Barbara Hutton in 1936. It has the second largest private garden in London (Buckingham Palace has the largest). Since 1955 it has been the official residence of the American Ambassador to the Court of St James (that is to say, the UK).

Japanese style bridge over a water feature in Regent's Park

Queen Mary's Gardens in the centre of Regent's Park

Corinthian and Tuscan Villas in the Outer Circle.

The many alluring features of Regent's Park include it's Open Air Theatre. None of the stage or auditorium are under cover and 140,000 seats are sold during it's 18 week Summer season every year, making it one of the largest theatres in London. Currently playing is a new version of On The Town and coming up this year are a dramatised version of A Tale of Two Cities and Oliver Twist.

The park also contains the the largest grass-covered sporting area in central London. Lots of football and cricket matches take place and, near to the US Ambassadors residence, is a baseball triangle.

The Zoological Society of London (ZSL) houses London Zoo within the park. This is a zoo which one can approve of because their primary aim is research and the preservation of species and most animals live much longer within the zoo than they would in the wild. 

Many blockbuster cinema films have scenes shot within the park; the original Harry Potter, About a Boy, Withnail and I, Bridget Jones The Edge of Reason to name a few.

The Triton Fountain, Regent's Park

In the north of the park Regent's canal passes through the Zoo and the park itself presenting one of the best walks in London; Little Venice to Camden Town. And north of that lies Primrose Hill, actually separate but a part of the park. It slopes gently upwards giving a splendid view of central London.

Central London viewed from Primrose Hill

I'm listening to Kathryn Williams early cover of Leonard Cohen's Hallelujah from her 2007 album Relations. Listen here. Her plaintive, fragile voice suits the song very well.

How Naomi Blake forged hope out of the Holocaust

Naomi Blake at her home in Muswell Hill, London

Naomi Blake is now well into her nineties. She was born in Czechoslovakia in 1924, the youngest of ten children and was an Auschwitz survivor as a child. Her original name was Zisel, which means 'sweet'. In 1948 she changed her name to Naomi. Naturally her experience of the Holocaust has been a major influence on her work as a sculptor but her output has had the recurring theme of optimism, hope for a better future and the promotion of understanding and goodwill between those of different faiths and backgrounds. Her story is remarkable. She lost most of her extended family, only eight out of 32 surviving and, during one of the Nazi death marches to the Baltic she made "a dash for it" escaping through deep snowdrifts and made her way back to  her former village only to find her home destroyed. From there she made her way, via Milan and Rome to Jerusalem in Palestine where she joined a Jewish defence group. She became a commander of 100 female soldiers and was injured by shrapnel from fighting the British, a piece of which is still in her neck. Eventually she moved to London for medical treatment where she met and married a German refugee, Asher Blake.

"The Refugee", Naomi Blake, Bramcote Memorial Garden, Nottinghamshire, England

She trained at the Hornsey School of Art and after starting with ceramic pots she moved through portrait sculpture, figurative and abstract work before moving back to introducing figurative aspects. She was largely influenced by Henry Moore and Barbara Hepworth.

She began exhibiting in 1962 and has work in (or more likely outside of) many Cathedrals, universities,  galleries, Churches and Synagogues in the UK and around the world.

"View", 2002, Fitzroy Square Garden, London

Her work is consistently optimistic and forward-looking. The Prince of Wales and his late grandmother, the Queen Mother, had pieces of her work in their private collections. Her daughter, Anita, says that, unlike many survivors, she was always ready to talk about her experiences of the Holocaust. She is a remarkable person who deserves a much higher profile that she has.

The picture below is a small maquette  (a sculptor’s small-scale preliminary model) owned by your correspondent, Bazza. Much of her work, like this one, has a mother and child theme. I rotate this piece every few weeks because it appeals from all angles.

"Mother and Child" maquette, Naomi Blake, owned by Bazza

Her art is life-affirming and promotes human values. Despite her experiences, Naomi has said:

"there is something positive in the human figure – there is a lot of good in people…with my past, if I were pessimistic, somehow, it wouldn’t have been worthwhile surviving".

The Kiss by Judee Sill

Judee Sill lived and died of a drugs overdose after a tragic life in 1975 aged 35. Her father and brother died while she was young and she had an alcoholic mother, all of which scarred her for life. She turned to heroin and had a short career as a bank-robber! 

And you probably never knew that she existed.

The Kiss by Judee Sill.
Love rising from the mists,
Promise me this and only this,
Holy breath touching me, like a wind song
Sweet communion of a kiss

Sun sifting through the grey
Enter in, reach me with a ray
Silently swooping down, just to show me
How to give my heart away

Once a crystal choir
Appeared while I was sleeping
And called my name
And when they came down nearer
Saying, dying is done,
Then a new song was sung
Until somewhere we breathed as one
And still I hear their whisper

Stars bursting in the sky
Hear the sad nova's dying cry
Shimmering memory, come and hold me
While you show me how to fly

Sun sifting through the grey
Enter in, reach me with a ray
Silently swooping down, just to show me
How to give my heart away

Lately sparkling hosts
Come fill my dreams, descending
On fiery beams
I've seen 'em come clear down
Where our poor bodies lay,
Soothe us gently and say,
Gonna wipe all your tears away
And still I hear their whisper

Love, rising from the mists
Promise me this and only this,
Holy breath touching me, like a wind song
Sweet communion of a kiss

Judee Sill

She employs a lot of religious imagery and there are many Old and New Testament references in these words. For example "hosts....descending on fiery beams" and, in the opening verse, the essence of parts of Genesis 1:2 is invoked. Another commentator has said the Hebrew word ruach usually translated into English as spirit more correctly means wind or breath; "Holy breath, touching me like a wind song".
The imagery of the "crystal choir" who "came down nearer" is strongly evocative of a passage in the Book of Revelation.
If you have never come across Judee Sill before here is my 'Revelation': The Kiss is not only a poem but also a song and a wonderful song too. Lyrics and poetry are different things but this a rare example of lyrics so beautiful and emotional that they stand up as poetry. I cannot hear it without being moved and, after all the years, it still grabs me and moves me. Listen to it here. And it's worth reading the comments on You Tube as well.

Mechelen, Belgium

The Grote Markt (Town Square) of Mechelen in Belgium

I have just returned from a five day trip to Mechelen in Flanders, the Dutch-speaking part of Belgium (In French it's known as Malines). I have made the easy journey to Belgium dozens of times from my home in suburban London. Mechelen is a very typical Flemish town with a medieval central square and 336 protected-status beautiful buildings. St Rumbold's Cathedral, begun after 1200 and consecrated more than 100 years later, is visible in the picture above. Most of these town squares, usually known as the  Grote Markt (Great Market) are lined with buildings of Dutch-style architecture, most of which are restaurants and bars. More often than not the classy retail shops are situated in the streets leading out of the square in all directions. Although Mechelen is less of a tourist town it is still very popular with locals. I didn't hear too much English being spoken but most people are able to speak it well.

The vaulted ceiling of St Rumbolds, Mechelen

This type of ceiling is very weighty and it is not uncommon to see this style of architecture built with flying buttresses because the weight tends to push the walls outward and the buttresses transfer the load to the ground or a lower wall. The cathedral is full of superb works of art although it was stripped almost bare in the three-day Spanish Fury of 1572. It has two superb carillons of bells totalling 98 pieces, many weighing nearly a ton each!

Belgium has hundreds of different types of beers, as many as 500 at one time. They still offer genuine Trappist Beers brewed by monks since medieval times in six Belgian monasteries (there are five others in the world). The use of the term Trappist is strictly controlled but so-called 'Trappist-style' beers are marketed as Abbey Beers. Funnily enough, my friends and I managed to find some in Mechelen. Who'da thought?

As well as beer, Belgium is rightly famous for it's food having more Michelin stars pro-rata than France and Mechelen keeps up that tradition. Every restaurant we visited gave excellent quality and value even though some of them were clearly touristic places.

Belgian chips (fries)

They greatest culinary delight of Belgian cuisine is clearly fried potato chips (also known as French fries). The secret is that they are twice-fried, at least. They are firstly blanched, then stored in cold water and finally fried completely and served in paper cones with a dollop of mayonnaise. Enjoyed with a glass of Frank Boon Kriek beer (brewed with sour cherries) - that's sheer heaven!

I seem to have wondered off the original subject of Mechelen. Never mind......

Painting of the Month (71) May 2017: Norman Rockwell

Norman Rockwell (1894-1978) was an American asrtist most famous for his cover illustrations for The Saturday Evening Post. He contributed over 300 covers during a period of more than 40 years. This picture served as a propaganda poster in World War 2 and was used as the magazine's cover in May 1943. Women were encouraged to fill the jobs left vacant when the men went to war and Rosie was a kind of ideal. She became a feminist icon.

Norman Rockwell, Rosie The Riveter, 1943

Rockwell's model was a nineteen-year-old phone operator named Mary Doyle Keefe. She was a very petite young lady and said that Rockwell phoned her after the painting was completed to apologise for making her look so big. That was not an accident of course; the idea was to show that women could be strong and easily do men's jobs. The picture has iconic status in the United States and was sold to a museum for $5 million in 2002. Rosie is seen eating a ham sandwich with a huge (light-weight fake) riveting gun on her lap. She has her foot placed, symbolically, on a copy of Hitler's Mein Kampf. The picture was sent on a touring exhibition to encourage people to buy war bonds along with a set of four pictures called Freedom of Worship, Freedom from Fear, Freedom from Want and Freedom of Speech.

The Four Freedoms

Rockwell has often been dismissed as a proper artist largely because of the perceived "cartoonish" sentimentality of his subjects. Critics would say that he is an illustrator rather than an artist. He had no problem with that and even referred to himself as an illustrator. However, I think he is hard done by. His paintings show obvious great skill and technique with superb compositions. His work was not always sentimental. Consider the picture below.

Norman Rockwell, The Problem We All Live With, 1964

This a very serious picture. The little girl is being escorted into a school in the south by US Marshalls. They are headless and the girl is highlighted to make sure that she captures your attention. Rockwell made her dress white (it was dark grey in reality) so that it formed a  high contrast with her dark skin. The rest of the picture is fairly 'grey' with the shocking exception of the rotten tomatoes that have been thrown and the yellow armbands. Also the whole picture forms a golden rectangle as does the ratio, top left from her chest. None of this is accidental, including the way she appears the be 'boxed-in' by the marshals.

On a lighter note, much of the imagery in the film Forrest Gump is based on Rockwell's work.

Rockwell                        Young Forrest Gump

And finally a look at a very typical and much reproduced early work:

Gazing at the Moon, 1926

I am listening to Betty Wright's Clean Up Woman. A brilliant 70s soul recording with fabulous guitar playing by Willie "Little Beaver" Hale.

Esprit de l'escalier

Esprit de l'escalier, from the French literally meaning 'staircase wit' is a beautiful phrase which is used in English because staircase or escalator wit sounds clumsy and inadequate. The pronunciation is 'espree de lescaliay' (click the words to hear it on You Tube).

It is defined as "A witty remark thought of too late, on the way home [or as you go upstairs]; the clever comment you wish you had delivered". We've all been there!

A good example is from Seinfeld (which is packed with examples):

George has a conflict with one of his co-workers named Reilly, who notices George stuffing himself with shrimp cocktail at a meeting. He remarks: "Hey George, the ocean called; they're running out of shrimp." Slow-witted George cannot think of a comeback until later, while driving to the tennis club to meet Jerry. His comeback is: "Well, the Jerk Store called, and they're running out of you." George becomes obsessed with recreating the encounter so that he can make use of his comeback.    Jerry, Elaine and Kramer disapprove of "jerk store" as a comeback mainly because "there are no jerk stores." Elaine suggests, "Your cranium called. It's got some space to rent." Jerry offers, "The zoo called. You're due back by six." Kramer finally suggests that George simply tell Reilly that he had sex with his wife.

This figure of speech should not be confused with a regular witty response. For example:

John Montagu: "Sir, I do not know whether you will die on the gallows or of the pox."

John Wilkes:"That will depend, my lord, on whether I embrace your principles or your mistress."

It wouldn't have been the same if Wilkes had written him a letter the next day with his riposte, would it?
I'm listening to Neil Young's Harvest Moon. After all these years I still enjoy hearing it.Click the title to listen.

Jackson Browne

I really like the music of Jackson Browne and have been listening to it for many years and have seen him in wonderful live-performance concerts a couple of times. He writes or co-writes most of his own material and is an excellent lyricist.

So, for your delectation and delight I have made links to five of his best songs on You Tube. Just click on the titles to be taken there!

Jackson Browne, then and now.

We begin with a recording made with the talented Irish musician Sharon Shannon of Man of Constant Sorrow.

Next is a song that he has to play in every live show. This live version is out of synch but it is from a unique album which featured all new songs recorded live in various places including backstage and hotel bedrooms but mostly on stage. For this song he always has the road crew on stage gathered around the piano to sing the backing. Enjoy Rosie.

This is a song which my wife Leah really loves and so do I. It's very different from his usual style but I never tire of listening to Linda Paloma.

Next up is a wistful song called Jamaica Say You Will. It has been recorded by Joe Cocker, Tom Rush, The Byrds and The Nitty Gritty Dirt Band among others.
Lastly one his very best songs: The Pretender. A wry commentary on contemporary life with superb lyrics:

"I'm gonna be a happy idiot

And struggle for the legal tender,

Where the ads take aim and lay their claim

To the heart and soul of the spender.

And believe in whatever may lie

In those things that money can buy

Though true love could have been a contender.

Are you there? Say a prayer for The Pretender

Who started out so young and strong

Only to surrender."