MARCH 2015 ISSUE
A sneaky peek of just some of what is in the March 2015 issue – Read today!
Morgan James
The Beatles’ album Sgt Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band was released on Thursday, June 1, 1967. Jimi Hendrix loved it so much that over the next couple of days he learned to play the entire thing himself, opening his Sunday night show at London’s Saville Theatre with a rendition of the title track. Unbeknownst to Hendrix, Paul McCartney and George Harrison were amongst the audience.
One mentions this because Morgan James, the subject of this piece, has just done a modern day equivalent: having bought [at the stroke of midnight on the day of its release] D’Angelo’s much debated Black Messiah album, she and her producer/guitarist…
Arrested Development
You could be forgiven for not having thought about Arrested Development in a while. The last time the group appeared in the UK album charts was with Zingalamaduni in 1994, an era when Nas and The Notorious B.I.G. were young upstarts and Snoop’s Doggystyle was still a raging controversy. Away from the spotlight, though, the Atlanta group split, reformed, and soldiered on, with varying line-ups, touring regularly. Their last album, 2012’s Standing At The Crossroads, had a title to describe what any group might experience two decades into their career. But Arrested Development have survived where many of their contemporaries haven’t…
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Eddie Murphy
More than 20 years ago, when Shabba Ranks was taking dancehall international and about to celebrate the first of two Grammy awards, he made a surprise appearance in Port Antonio, performing on stage with film star and stand-up comedian Eddie Murphy. The latter strolled on stage wearing a white Telecaster, with a strap that was made to look like chains. Its effect was Black Moses meets Trading Places, but the music itself was beyond question. “Your nation was built on my sweat/Why do you hate I?” they chanted, on a song called I Was A King. It was a lyrical history lesson, telling us of ancient African kings and queens, and the most compelling evidence thus far that Eddie Murphy might have the makings of a reggae artist…
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Paul Jackson Jnr.
A key market for jazz, soul and funk, Japan is also home to a noted American musician. Bass guitarist-vocalist Paul Jackson Jnr, the man who has made the low end an earthquake for the likes of Herbie Hancock and Carlos Santana, moved there in the mid ‘80s, a time when professional opportunities for expatriate musicians with a shed load of talent were widespread. Some four decades on the West coast native has no regrets about his decision to lay down roots in the Far East…
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