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| England, RTomens, 2026 |
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Despite the viral infection rendering my taste buds ineffective I accept LJ's offer of a slice of pandoro, saying "I'll remember its flavour!" So I do...conjuring up the vanilla flavour in my mind. This raises the question of reality vs imagination. I can imagine the flavour, but that does not truly replace the act of tasting the ingredients making up the flavour. It's a poor substitute, yes, but a substitute nonetheless, therefore better than nothing.
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The singer Lou Rawls died 20 years ago yesterday (Jan 6). This September sees a happier anniversary being the month his single, You'll Never Find Another Love Like Mine, went to number 1 on both the R&B and Easy Listening charts 50 years ago.
As I write '50 years' the number sends a small shock of realisation through me; a marker of so much time passed in my life. The record was a phenomenon in my 17-year-old life; in the lives of us working class lads who loved black music. But is it really 'black music'? Note that it was number 1 in the Easy Listening chart. We didn't even know what Easy Listening was back then. Only 20 years later did the genre reemerge in the guise of a 'cool' thing to get into. There were clubs playing it and compilations made. Exotica was 'hip'!
I'll leave the can of worms marked 'What Is Black Music?' closed, or slightly ajar, allowing a few thoughts to wriggle out...such as the obvious acknowledgment that most black music did not qualify as Easy, or rather, the light orchestral Easy albums as commonly recognised did not feature black band leaders. Then again, ditching the upper case 'E', we know that a lot of Jazz made popular by the likes of Ella Fitzgerald and even Billie Holiday could qualify as 'easy' listening. Ditto Louis Armstrong and Duke Ellington.
It's mostly the piano on You'll Never Find Another Love Like Mine which whispers 'Easy'. It's pure cocktail lounge, coming in as it does after an irresistible mid-tempo intro and Gamble and Huff's song borne on Lou's velvet baritone voice. You'd have to be a machine to deny it's charms! No ifs, or buts, or maybes, over the decades, this record has grown to embed itself in my being. Too profound? I mean, some records of our youth which meant so much then do fade away in terms of meaning. Some come back into our open arms.
This means something deeply personal to me, beyond just nostalgia, but I can't put my finger on what, exactly, that thing is. I suspect it's to do with a girlfriend. Was it ------, who I 'dumped', despite the fact that she had a car and more to the point, was long-legged and quiet beautiful? What was wrong with me? In retrospect I can't fault her, but did my young, stupid mind find her lacking somehow? I'll never know. I was no doubt confused about everything, my future looming ominously rather than hopefully. I had a job but no career. Music, clothes and girls were all I could ever bring myself to study and, as you can tell, I hadn't yet passed my exams in the latter. If I had, I would have treated that girl better.
Oh well, at least this record remains pure, like all great music, unsullied by time.
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