Log #151 - Glorious Pepper

John Martyn Glorious Fool

Truckstop Honeymoon Big Things And Little Things

The Beatles Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band

Harmonia Deluxe
Tord Gustavsen Trio The Other Side

The Black Keys El Camino

Still enjoying the John Martyn album - it's one of his best actually. Possibly his last great album but considering it's his 11th studio album that represents a remarkable longevity of critical success.

Some of the slower drawn out tracks like Hearts and Keys and Please Fall In Love With Me recall the epic Small Hours from One World.

Ever revered by contemporaries that enjoyed greater commercial success, guests include fans Eric Clapton and Phil Collins.

I continue a Beatles retrospective with Sgt. Pepper. You can't really argue against this being their best album, and possibly the best album by anyone ever. The songs are magnificent and furthermore the sum is even greater than the considerable parts (the album being almost a concept with tracks running into each other, bookended by versions of the title track, plus the grand finale A Day In The Life which I think is The Beatles' greatest song)...

... when I was young my favourite album for ages was ELO's Out Of The Blue and when my father used to overhear me playing that album he'd always tell me that there was something on there that was exactly the same as on Sgt. Pepper - it took me a while to realise what he meant - at first I thought it was Being For The Benefit Of Mr Kite! - but eventually I realised he meant the coda to Mr Blue Sky being very similar to the "woke up, dragged a comb across my head" section of A Day In The Life - of course ELO were huge Beatles copyists and many of their songs were similar.

Everything they did in their previous 7 albums led to this. The follow ups Magical Mystery Tour, The White Album, Abbey Road and Let It Be, each represented incremental retreats from this peak.