Friday Photo #75

Fate had a damn good crack at scuppering my birthday week plans. Firstly, while dressing for work the week before last, my back went into spasm, both agonising and scary given that it came out of the blue. I couldn't really move without considerable pain for a few days, after which it gradually eased, though a fortnight on it still isn't right. I never pull a sickie, so my boss knew it must be something serious when I called the store in some distress. By Thursday I was mobile enough to welcome my cousin and her husband for their long planned stay, during which we enjoyed a number of local excursions in the warm, spring weather, including a jaunt over to Snape Maltings where Barbara Hepworth's 'Family of Man' looked particularly majestic standing before the reedbeds of the Alde estuary. The last time I visited Snape the piece was absent, so it was nice to see it back in situ. The hand of fate hadn't quite finished trying to put a spanner in the works though, as a Tube strike had been belatedly announced for the very day of the family reunion in London that I mentioned in my previous post. But, in spite of all the obstacles, each of us somehow made it to the Euston pub at roughly the appointed time and enjoyed a memorable, if all too brief, few hours together.

Steve Wynn - My Family

Steve Wynn

Charity Chic's weekly 'Dylan Covered' series pitches an original Bob Dylan recording in direct competition with another artist's version of the same song, leaving the reader to cast a vote for one performance or the other. Most of the time (see what I did there Bob aficionados?) this doesn't pose a problem for me. I've spent more hours of my life listening to and thinking about Bob Dylan than is probably healthy for a man of my age, so Bob will usually get the nod. He's far from infallible though and I'm happy give credit to a good interpretation where it's due. But Charity Chic has twisted the decision making knife a little further on a couple of occasions, by pitching Bob directly against another of my favourite artists. Already in the series I've had to mull over Dylan vs Robyn Hitchcock (see here for the result of that encounter) and this week, Dream Syndicate's fabulous reading of 'Blind Willie McTell' is up for the popular vote against Bob's sublime original (here). I've been a fan of The Dream Syndicate since 'The Days of Wine and Roses' in 1982, which seems an awfully long time ago now that I come to think about it. The band split in 1989 and I've continued to follow Steve Wynn's busy career as a solo artist in the years since. I'm slightly horrified to note the paucity of Steve's music in my back pages, so by way of recompense, here's the title track from his 1999 LP, a personal favourite and a song which was the highlight of a concert I caught around the turn of the century.

Steve Wynn - My Midnight

Version City #28 - Happy Birthday Ray Davies

Many happy returns to Ray Davies, who hits the big 7-0 today. His legendary catalogue has been a popular source of cover material for nearly 50 years and here are three of my favourites, from The Nomads, Gravenhurst and Steve Wynn.