Desert Island Disks

Subject: Desert Island Disks
From: GUEST,Suibhne Astray
Date: 09 Feb 11 - 06:59 AM

You know the format. What would yours be? As for myself...

The Fall - Hexenduction Hour
Joy Division - Closer
Miles Davis - Bitches Brew
Third Ear Band - Alchemy
Rene Zosso & Anne Osnowycz - Musique a Bourdon
Rahsaan Roland Kirk - Volunteered Slavery
Kraftwerk - Volume Three (Ralf und Florian)
Sun Ra - Mayan Temples
Soft Machine - Volume Two
Man - Back into the Future

As for folk songs, I can sing 'em myself, though to that end The Book would have to be The Faber Book of Popular Verse.

Subject: RE: Desert Island Disks
From: Will Fly
Date: 09 Feb 11 - 07:15 AM

Well, the original Desert Island Discs really meant a choice of eight pieces of music - gramophone records in those days - and a book. But we'll be as generous as you, SA and allow ten albums... :-)

Do you know, I might just have to take all eight discs of the Complete Library of Congress Jelly Roll Morton recordings made by Alan Lomax in 1938. Would that count as one?

I've pondered the Desert Island Discs "choice" question many times over the years and decided it's actually impossible for me to answer. One of the questions that dear old Roy Plomley used to ask is what significance the choices in question had for the castaway. So would you take music which had some personal significance, or just stuff you liked - or both?

Now, if I could take my iPod...

Subject: RE: Desert Island Disks
From: GUEST,Suibhne Astray
Date: 09 Feb 11 - 08:59 AM

Eight! Doh! Ah well, I suppose I could live without The Fall & Soft Machine...

All this stuff has deep personal significance; it's weathered a lot of transitions in taste & remains constant because it touches something deeper than merely liking it. Mayan Temples, for example, is (as far one can ever establish these things) the last studio album the Sun Ra ever made & quite possibly his finest. Dare one say definitive?

I've only recently discovered the pre-Autobahn Kraftwerk in the form of three albums (and a radio session) dismissed by Ralf Hutter as 'archaeology' and excluded from the re-release catalogue accordingly. Volume Three in particular is as perfect as music gets for me and whilst I might wish I'd heard it in my adolescence, it nevertheless touches the adolescent in me, inspiring that wonderment that maybe Camus was thinking about when he wrote about those great and simple images in the presence of which our hearts first open.

I could go on, but I won't, although it might be nice for anyone bothering with this thread to say why they choose these things.

Subject: RE: Desert Island Disks
From: Max Johnson
Date: 09 Feb 11 - 01:03 PM

These are mine, but only if I can have a different list when I'm in a different mood, ok?

The Mamas And The Papas - Spanish Harlem.
Ralph Vaughn-Williams - The Lark Ascending.
Les Troubadours Du Roi Bedouin - Missa Luba, Sanctus.
Joni Mitchell - Amelia.
Schubert - String Quintet C maj.
Puccini - O Soave Fanciulla, La Boheme, (Pavarotti, Freni).
Starless and Bible Black - Stan Tracey Quartet
Blondie - Maria.

Chosen because they all bite my head off.

Book would be the Collected Aubrey/Maturin Novels Patrick O'Brien.
Y'know, the bound edition.
Luxury would be a vast quantity of satay sauce.

Subject: RE: Desert Island Disks
From: Van
Date: 09 Feb 11 - 01:28 PM

One thing I've always wondered is why should you be lumbered with the complete works of Shakespeare rather than sya the Child Ballads or Brecht or something that would give you pleasure rather than use to light the fire.

Subject: RE: Desert Island Disks
From: Max Johnson
Date: 09 Feb 11 - 02:11 PM

Interesting about music chosen for its significance. I get that, of course, but I personally couldn't imagine wanting to listen to music other than because I love the music. And it's the same with music I don't like. I can't think of a piece of music that I'm put off listening to other than because it just doesn't do it to me.
Actually, I can't stand 'Summertime', but I think that's just because I've heard it too many times; a bit like the blues equivalent of 'The Wild Rover' (for me).

Perhaps genre is a different thing, though? For example, I really like Al Bowlly. Is it mostly because I'm drawn to jazz, to the era, or just to his voice? I'll have to think about this.

And I've already decided to swap the Missa Luba for Fleetwood Mac - Go Your Own Way.

Subject: RE: Desert Island Disks
From: treewind
Date: 09 Feb 11 - 02:39 PM

For many years I've thought John Kirkpatrick and Sue Harris "The Rose of Britain's Isle" would be on my desert island list but it hasn't got much further. I'm sure Schubert's C major string quintet should be there, after that I haven't a clue.

Anahata

Subject: RE: Desert Island Disks
From: GUEST,Suibhne Astray
Date: 09 Feb 11 - 02:51 PM

The trick would be to get shipwrecked on a desert island with a whole bunch of other peeps and share their thing. I could dig a few days of Jelly Roll Morton, Al Bowly, and Chick Webb (who rarely gets a mention on Mudcat but remains a long time hero of mine). I love sharing other people's musical passions, just as long as it's not Barry Manilow, Show of Hands, Celtic Woman or Susan Boyle.

Child Ballads or Shakespeare? I think I'd go for The Bard for pure reading pleasure & challenging literary sophistication. The Bible's a hoot too, despite the righteousness and bloodshed it seems to inspire. Maybe the 1958 Oor Wullie Book would be a better bet altogether?

Subject: RE: Desert Island Disks
From: Max Johnson
Date: 10 Feb 11 - 07:47 AM

Yes. You should never embark on a long sea voyage without first checking that your fellow passengers and crew have some nice sounds.

Subject: RE: Desert Island Disks
From: GUEST,John from Kemsing
Date: 10 Feb 11 - 07:55 AM

Perhaps someone may correct me but I believe a guest (Gene Autry?),in the early days of the programme, selected eight of his own records.

Subject: RE: Desert Island Disks
From: Will Fly
Date: 10 Feb 11 - 07:57 AM

Do you remember those bibles printed on very thin, hard paper? Many years ago, the people who published them - might have been the Bible Society - realised that there was a huge vogue for them in those parts of the world where missionaries had gone. Excellent, they thought, we'll fulfill the demand as best we can.

Off went huge shipments of bibles to the said foreign parts. It was only years later that they discovered that the pages such bibles made great roll-ups...

Subject: RE: Desert Island Disks
From: GUEST,Patsy
Date: 10 Feb 11 - 10:44 AM

My mood is so changeable it would be difficult to come up with just eight pieces of significant music. A lot has happened along the way from childhood until now with lots of significant music of all kinds even oddities like the Goons and Benny Hill. But I suppose if I did abandon them it wouldn't be the end of my world. I will have to go away have tea and think about it. For a book the Bible would be a good (only) option because it would be the most likely book to be salvaged from the ship along with copies of Marie Claire, at least the Bible escapes all the advertising rubbish. Even better I could attempt to write my own book.

Subject: RE: Desert Island Disks
From: tritoneman
Date: 10 Feb 11 - 11:28 AM

It was only years later that they discovered that the pages such bibles made great roll-ups...

Boo Hewerdine has written a song about soldiers in the First World War rolling making roll-ups from bible pages. I think it's actually called 'Bible Pages'.

Subject: RE: Desert Island Disks
From: Max Johnson
Date: 10 Feb 11 - 12:28 PM

I think it was Maria Callas who selected eight of her own recordings. Please correct me in the unlikely event that I'm wrong.

Subject: RE: Desert Island Disks
From: Will Fly
Date: 10 Feb 11 - 12:30 PM

My memory tells me is was actually the singer Elizabeth Schwartzkopf - and she may well have misunderstood the basis of the programme...!

Subject: RE: Desert Island Disks
From: GUEST
Date: 10 Feb 11 - 04:10 PM

Yes, it was she . . . though her first namee was ELISABETH.

Subject: RE: Desert Island Disks
From: The Borchester Echo
Date: 10 Feb 11 - 04:18 PM

And here's the missing biscuit.

Subject: RE: Desert Island Disks
From: tritoneman
Date: 10 Feb 11 - 05:04 PM

I do enjoy listening to Desert Island Discs but, in the extremely unlikely chance of my ever being a guest on it, I just wouldn't cope. When I saw this thread start I decided I'd really try to make that list. I've got it down to about thirty songs and now I give up........

Subject: RE: Desert Island Disks
From: MGM·Lion
Date: 10 Feb 11 - 10:41 PM

Surely Schwarzkopf, if she had initially misunderstood her brief for the programme, would have been put right by the producers when time for recording came?

~Michael~

Subject: RE: Desert Island Disks
From: Roger the Skiffler
Date: 11 Feb 11 - 09:01 AM

Cilla Black also selected 8 of her own!
As for me, not that I'd ever be asked, it would be impossible. I'd want 8 Louis Armstrong, 8 Sonny & Brownie, 8 Leadbelly, 8 Fred McDowell, not to mention Ella, Basie, Ellington, Donegan...No. If I can't take my whole collection, I ain't going!

RtS

Subject: RE: Desert Island Disks
From: Micca
Date: 11 Feb 11 - 09:08 AM

why not just ask for your Fully loaded iPod as your Luxury!!??

Subject: RE: Desert Island Disks
From: Will Fly
Date: 11 Feb 11 - 09:32 AM

I mentioned that in passing, Micca - might get a few hours of battery life from it before it dried up!

Subject: RE: Desert Island Disks
From: GUEST, topsie
Date: 11 Feb 11 - 11:45 AM

Add a solar powered battery charger as part of the luxury.

Subject: RE: Desert Island Disks
From: YorkshireYankee
Date: 11 Feb 11 - 01:35 PM

For many years now, I have thought that I would want the complete works of Jacqes Brel -- in French as well as in English.

I figure that since I studied French for a fair few years, and love the language, and like playing with words in English, it would keep me occupied for many years. Since my French is rusty, it would take quite a bit of time for me just to completely understand the French versions; then I could start trying to see if I could come up with translations into English that are even better than the (already brilliant, IMHO) current ones.

Pointless? Certainly. But my "project" could keep me happily occupied... probably endlessly!

I realise that my approach is unusual; everyone else I have ever heard of seems to think in terms of songs that they adore/could not live without and/or songs that remind them of important times/places/events/people in their lives (or some combination of those two).

If I went with the Brel recordings, then the book I'd want would be a French-English/English-French dictionary (of course).

I wonder if they'd let me have the complete Child Ballads instead of the Bible (it's a bible of sorts, isn't it?)...

Subject: RE: Desert Island Disks
From: Smedley
Date: 11 Feb 11 - 05:59 PM

Cilla Black did NOT choose all her own recordings.

Subject: RE: Desert Island Disks
From: GUEST,Sydneyseas
Date: 12 Feb 11 - 08:52 PM

JOHNNY O'KEEFE - I'M COUNTING ON YOU
CILLA BLACK - LONDON BRIDE
JOHNNY O'KEEFE - SHOUT
CILLA BLACK - I'LL LOVE YOU STILL
DADDY COOL - EAGLE ROCK
CILLA BLACK - IF I COULD PUT YOU IN MY SONG
JOHNNY O'KEEFE - SATURDAY NIGHT
CILLA BLACK - YOU'RE MY WORLD

Subject: RE: Desert Island Disks
From: Roger the Skiffler
Date: 14 Feb 11 - 04:02 AM

Good point, Micca, but my luxury would have to be a kazoo (to scare off wild animals- the washboard would be too "useful")!
Perhaps the Cilla "fact" is an urban myth- or was she on more than once?

RtS

Subject: RE: Desert Island Disks
From: GUEST,Desi C
Date: 14 Feb 11 - 11:06 AM

I'm sure like most I could make ten lists, then ten more, but with little thought off the top of my head

Carrickfergus by Paddy Reilly
Bunclody by Luke Kelly
Sammy's Bar by Cyril Tawney
For The Sake Of THe Song by Townes Van Zandt
Singing in Kilkenny by myself
Peggy Gordon by Luke Kelly
The Auld Triangle by The Dubliners
Birds And Boats by Billy Bragg with Natalie Merchant
BOOK- Trinity by Leon Uris

Subject: RE: Desert Island Disks
From: GUEST,Ralphie
Date: 15 Feb 11 - 04:39 AM

Roy Plomley.....And what luxury would you take?
Guest...........A blow up rubber doll, and a can of elastoplast.
Plomley (laughing)...Thats two items!
Guest...........Well, I'll take the elastoplast then.
Plomley.........OK, and thank you very much....Gary Glitter.
(And I've got the tape to prove it really happened!)
As for my 8, changes on a daily basis.

Subject: RE: Desert Island Disks
From: Nicholas Waller
Date: 15 Feb 11 - 06:26 AM

@ Van "why should you be lumbered with the complete works of Shakespeare"

I thought that a problem in the early days of the programme* - when Britain was perhaps more religious and culturally unified - was every guest and his dog picked the Bible or Shakespeare and it was all getting a bit dull and predictable. So the producers said, right, we'll take those two as a given, now pick something else you unimaginative lot of pious tossers and sanctimonious poseurs.

"The Bible" stands for any suitable core religious text, so Muslims are given The Koran automatically, for instance. Atheists are allowed to refuse a Holy Book, but can't take two normal books.

I suppose a sensible book to take would be the multi-volume full Oxford English Dictionary, and then you could create any other existent book, poem or song by judicious reading in the correct order. Which you would have time to do.

*It's been going since 1942.

Subject: RE: Desert Island Disks
From: Roger the Skiffler
Date: 15 Mar 11 - 07:14 AM

OK , I've given this some thought (!). I've gone for tracks that remind me of different phases of my life, which most guests do. In some cases I'm still torn between two choices.

1)Armstrong/Hines: Weather Bird. I got into jazz & blues when I first heard Armstrong on the radio when I was acout 9 or 10. Also got to get Earl in there somehow.
2)Jimmy Giuffre/Jim Hall: Train and the River. I first heard it at college in the possession of the guy who became my best man and still a good friend. I managed to source a secondhand copy myself later.
3)Roy Eldridge: I can't get started. From a JATP concert that I saw on tour in Birmingham. After I left college and got a job and bought a hi-fi this was the first record (2-LP set) I bought as I'd been to the concert and this was one of the highlights.
4)Salena Jones: Moment of Truth. When I was home from college and in the 2 separate years I worked in Birmingham I used to go to a jazz club called The Opposite Lock and they played this almost every night before the live bands started.
5)Chris Barber: Battersea Rain Dance OR Ken Colyer: One for my baby. To remind me of all those nights at the 100 Club in the 1970s. Colyer was the first artist I saw there in 1968 but Sheila bought me that Barber LP about the time we got engaged in 1970 so that wins out.
6)Alex Welsh Band: Blueberry Hill. We went to the 100 Club at least once a week when we lived in London and Alex was on about once a month. Much missed, great band.
7)Sinatra/Ellington: I Like the Sunrise. We were disapppointed when we saw Sinatra live- very perfunctory at the end of his career, Ellington never disappointed and great bands always inspired Sinatra to better things. An alternative would be any track by Ella with Oscar Peterson, two artists we never missed when they came to London.
8)SonnyBlack (Bill Boazman):Paris after Dark OR Lee Gibson: Misty. To remind me of the many happy hours I now have at Jagz club in Ascot, hard to choose between my current favourite blues and jazz artists.

There was a programme on BBC Radio called My Top 12 so I could add another four:
9)Humphrey Lyttelton: anything, probably one of the tracks with Elkie Brooks. We followed Humph a lot after Alex Welsh died, now he's gone.
10)Mississippi Fred: Baby Please Don't Go OR Sonny & Brownie: Long Way from Home. I've not managed to shoehorn enough blues into the list.
11)Basie: Splanky. That would wake me up & keep the beasties at bay.
12)Lonnie Donegan: Stranger Blues. One of his more authentic perfomances and would remind me of my teens.
Still no space for Animals: House of the Rising Sun to remins me of Greek holidays.
Book? I read so fast it would have to be a Complete Works of someone like Dickens. If a single volume then Grossmith's Diary of a Nobody always makes me laugh.
RtS
(Micca, can you get a solar powered Brennan (TM)? That would beat the I-Pod!)

Subject: RE: Desert Island Disks
From: Micca
Date: 15 Mar 11 - 12:37 PM

Rog, I imagine so, since it has a transformer in the power line and probably runs off 6 or 12 Volts!!

Subject: RE: Desert Island Disks
From: Fred McCormick
Date: 15 Mar 11 - 01:53 PM

Max Johnson. "I think it was Maria Callas who selected eight of her own recordings. Please correct me in the unlikely event that I'm wrong."

Dunno about that, but the discs which Lionel Hampton selected had Lionel Hampton on every one of them.

Subject: RE: Desert Island Disks
From: GUEST,Ralphie
Date: 15 Mar 11 - 03:03 PM

Can't comment on other peoples thoughts, but Otto Preminger picked 8 songs from the soundtracks of his own films, and his book was an autobiography of.......Otto Preminger!

Subject: RE: Desert Island Disks
From: alanabit
Date: 15 Mar 11 - 03:14 PM

I think I would actually cheat and take an MP3 player with several megabytes of storage... However, trying to keep it down to eight pieces of music, these would be near the top of my list:
"Gimme Shelter" by The Rolling Stones.
"Maybe I'm Amazed" (live) by Paul MacCartney.
"Bless These Children" by Bill Boazman (aka Sonny Black)
"Nimrod" by Elgar (Sir Colin Davis and the LSO)
"The Dance of The Comedians" by Smetana (Conducted by Robert Casteels)
"Across The Hills" by Paul Downes and Phil Beer (brilliant version of a Leon Rosselson song)
"Come On In My Kitchen" by Robert Johnson
"Empty Handed" by George Papavgeris.
The first book I would want to take would be the Complete Works of Shakespeare, because it is the one which best stands up to re-reading. I find something new in the plays every time I read them. If that was taken as a given, I might toss up between W.Somerset-Maugham's "The Razor's Edge" or the more recent novel,"Captain Corelli's Mandolin". The luxury object would have to be my gorgeous Fylde Oberon guitar!

Subject: RE: Desert Island Disks
From: Graham_Pirt
Date: 15 Mar 11 - 03:26 PM

Many years ago, in the 1970's I was asked to feature on Radio Humberside's version of Desert Island Discs. Can't remember all the recordings I chose but know that I included:

Clear White Light - Lindisfarne
O Fortuna from Carmina Burana - Carl Orff
Everyday - Buddy Holly
One too many mornings - Bob Dylan
Suzanne - Leonard Cohen
Painting Box - Incredible String Band
Rubber Band - Mike & Lal Waterson

and the book was Being & Nothingness by Jean-Paul Sartre (Bit pretentious!!)

Only a simple, small scale programme but fun to do