Well when it comes to music there are record labels and there are record labels and my all time favourites are Harvest and Elektra.
Harvest was a brilliant ground-breaking label that in the year 1971 had albums by The Edgar Broughton Band, Roy Harper, Electric Light Orchestra, The Move and two of my all time favourite bands - Barclay James Harvest and Pink Floyd.
This article featured my favourite album of all time Once Again by Barclay James Harvest. Incidentally the label was named after that band. I suppose they could have named it Barclay or James!
But the fact that astonished me came from what is possibly my favourite Floyd album Meddle. It features the incomparable piece of music that goes by the title of Echoes. It's a lush piece lasting over 23 minutes and even if the whole isn't recognisable to you, you will recognise some of it as it's been used in adverts, films and much more.
But it wasn't always called Echoes. The piece was originally entitled "Return of the Son of Nothing" which isn't very catchy. It combines a number of different themes, tunes and special effects. I would use the word melange if I knew what it meant (ok I do know what it means and it seems appropriate to the song Echoes which starts very quietly and builds and builds). The thing I particularly like about Echoes is the way it unfolds and the way it almost acts as a bridge between their earlier psychedelic work and their later more commercial work.
It wasn't known as Echoes until August 1971 but here's the interesting thing. It was first performed on 22nd April, 1971, at Norwich Lads Club. Oh to have been there. When I read it was first performed in Norwich I assumed it would have been at the University of East Anglia.
Norwich Lads Club was better known as a youth club and boxing venue and I just cannot believe that Pink Floyd (the legendary Pink Floyd that is) not only played there but premiered one of their greatest pieces to what must have been a relatively small audience. I believe it was the classic Floyd line-up by that time of Roger Waters, Rick Wright, Nick Mason and David Gilmore. It was probably in the days when they were talking to each other. All I know is that Waters' lyrics are pure poetry in any language. I have always upheld the view that so many rock writers are genuine poets as important to our language as Donne, Shakespeare, Byron, Wordsworth et al.
"Strangers passing in the street
By chance two separate glances meet
And I am you and what I see is me
And do I take you by the hand
And lead you through the land
And help me understand the best I can."
The set list for that concert was short although the pieces were long. They opened with "Echoes" from the LP Meddle and followed that with "Set The Controls For the Heart of the Sun" from A Saucerful of Secrets and then continued with "Cymbalene" from the soundtrack album to the film More. They finished up with "Atom Heart Mother" and finally "A Saucerful of Secrets" before taking off into the Norwich night.
It wasn't their only appearance in Norwich or their first in fact. Their first was at the UEA on 22nd June, 1968 which was followed by The Industrial Club on 18th October, 1968 and then the Lads Club. I haven't been able to find out the line-ups for those gigs but they may well have included Syd Barrett before he lost his trolley and went totally off the rails. That would make these two Norwich concerts very important in the history of Norfolk music and something I am researching at the moment to include classics like Jimi Hendrix playing Norwich and Dereham and the Beatles playing Norwich and how about Nirvana with Kurt Cobain playing Orford Cellar.
Orford Cellar was Norwich's equivalent of the famous Liverpool Cavern Club. The only difference being I have been down the Cavern on a number of occasions but never made it to Orford Cellar. Today there is a blue plaque on the wall of where the Orford used to be. It's in the Castle Meadow area of Norwich which used to be called Orford Place and probably still is, although most people would know it as Red Lion Street.
So sadly I have no personal memories of Orford Cellar but just look at the list of people who played there - of Jimi Hendrix, David Bowie, Elton John, Eric Clapton and Cream, The Moody Blues, Fleetwood Mac and many more household names and world famous musicians strutted their stuff.
Like Liverpool's Cavern, it would have been hot, smokey and intensely horrible but would have provided people at the gigs with the ability to say many years later "I Was There". Well I wasn't there and I wish that I had been. I will write a little more about the history of the Orford in a coming blog, but for now let's move back a few years to the Second World War.
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The only way to understand history is to attempt to put yourself in a particular time and/or place. I have been reading a little about the so called Baedeker Raids over Norwich during the Second World War.
They are named after the German travel books which highlighted English cities of particular interest to the traveller from an architectural and historical point of view.
This gave Hitler the idea of bombing them - I always think of the phrase bombing them to buggery but that would, of course, be a little coarse (did you notice there how I used two words pronounced the same but spelt differently - or should that be spelled?).
Anyway it's just over 80 years since the Baedeker raids hit Norwich and set the city ablaze in April 1942. Other British cities to be Baedecker bombed included Bath, Canterbury, Exeter and York (but for some unexplainable reason not Leeds - that's a joke by the way).
Norwich was hit by the fifth and seventh of the 11 Baedeker raids and these took place on April 27th and April 29th late in the evening. As you may know I am a trustee of the Norfolk Family History Society and one of our honorary life members Roy Scott has researched and listed every casualty from the raids.
The ironic thing about the raids is that, whilst they reduced many areas to rubble, they failed to hit either the Cathedral or the Castle - the two main tourist attractions in the city. Again I will return to the Baedecker raids in future blogs
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My tennis playing partner David Wallace is fluid (sorry fluent) in the Italian language and has a great interest in Italian history. When he heard that we recently visited the delightful town of Pizzo in Calabria he wanted to tell me about the Mafia connection.
Calabria is in the foot of Italy and was described to us as the south of the south. It faces Sicily and we all know about that island's connection with the Mafia. I rate Palermo on Sicily as the worst place I have ever visited. Crumbling buildings and dead cats in the gutter is what I remember about it.
Back in Calabria the area we were centred on was around Vibo Vilentia and according to the internet this is an area rife for Mafia operations. Pizzo is not only the name of a town in Calabria but also the name for the extortion money paid to the Mafia. This is the entry from Wikepedia on the subject:
The pizzo is protection money paid to the Mafia often in the form of a forced transfer of money resulting from extortion. The practice is widespread in Southern Italy not only by the Sicilian Cosa Nostra but also the Ndrangheta in Calabria. Businesses that refuse to pay the Pizzo may be burned down.
In return for paying the Pizzo, businesses receive "protection" and can enlist neighbourhood Mafiosi to cut through bureaucracy or resolve disputes with other tradesmen. Collecting the Pizzo keeps the Mafia in touch with the community and allows it to "control their territory."
There are efforts to crack down on Mafia operations in Calabria. Last year there was a trial with 900 witnesses testifying against more than 350 people including politicians and officials charged with being members of the Ndrangheta. A high security 1,000 capacity courtroom with cages to hold the defendants was built in the city of Lamezia Terme. I will try to find out what happened at that trial and report back. What I have found out is that the Ndrangheta is the most powerful Mafia group in the whole of Italy and includes people with the emotive names of Fatty and Blondie!
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Well we got through Friday 13th without any problem. Actually it was a very pleasant day and I will tell you about our visit to Norwich as part of my rundown of our week in tomorrow's blog.