We’ve been beset on all sides by chain-mail style challenges on social media recently – show yourself at 20, pick ten albums that influenced you, share a poem, nominate someone else. And usually I would shrug these things off, but at the minute, with time to spare, it’s been oddly comforting - to revisit the record collection, and think about the times you were living through when you first heard particular artists and songs. And it’s been human and sociable, to see other people’s choices too, to realise you have undiscovered common ground.
Anyway, I assembled ten albums for the challenge recently, records that had been important or influential to me – it’s a tough task (thanks cousin Paula), because of the limitations and what you have to jettison. So I realised I had ended up with ten singer-songwriter choices, and all (I think) from the seventies. No classical, no jazz… And even for a songwriter collection, no Springsteen. No Kristofferson. No Prine. No Jackson Browne. Only one Dylan. No Leonard Cohen, Costello, Hiatt, Guy Clark, Terry Allen, Beatles, Stones, NRBQ…
Still, even if it’s a small suitcase, you still have to pack it. For better or worse, and with my truncated social media comments, here they are, all in one place:
Day One of Ten: The delicious and groovy Bop Til You Drop by Ry Cooder... Guitar was never the same for me after this.
Day Two of Ten: Highway 61 Revisited - my first doorway into the world of Bob Dylan.
Day Three of Ten: The record that made me get serious about acoustic guitar, and which remains a constant soundtrack: Mud Slide Slim and the Blue Horizon by James Taylor.
Day Four of Ten: Thanks to Keith Watterson for introducing me to this wonderful album, which never ceases to move, uplift and comfort me - Bill Withers Live at Carnegie Hall.
Day Five of Ten: I listened to 'Kentucky Avenue' for the first time and realised songs have the power to tear you open - the wonderful Blue Valentine by Tom Waits.
Day Six of Ten: Discovering that you can't always trust the storyteller - sometimes he's an entirely invented and nasty character: Good Old Boys by Randy Newman.
Day Seven of Ten: I always thought that hearing really good music for the first time should make the world change colour slightly - so it was with this, the first time I encountered the LA-meets-New Orleans groove of... Dixie Chicken by Little Feat.
Day Eight of Ten: I've adored many of her beautifully-written albums over the years, but with some reservation (Hejira...? Court and Spark...?) I settled on this one: The Hissing of Summer Lawns by Joni Mitchell.
Day Nine of Ten: A songwriter album that blew all my fuses with its mix of anger, whimsy and heartbreak. Any album that contains 'Southern Man', 'Only Love Can Break Your Heart' and 'Don't Let it Bring You Down' has to be a winner: Neil Young: After the Gold Rush.
Day Ten of Ten: As half of Simon & Garfunkel, he was part of my childhood soundtrack - when I grew older, I came to realise what a magnificent songwriter he was. Paul Simon has it all - as a musician, a lyricist, a master of melody. So many great albums, but I keep going back to this, because it has 'American Tune' and 'Something so Right' on it. And 'Loves Me Like a Rock'. And 'Take Me to the Mardi Gras'. And 'Tenderness': There Goes Rhymin' Simon.