Monday, November 26, 2007
Top 10: Number 7
I've got a bit of a backlog of posts here (there's a first time for everything, right) so moving swiftly ahead to Number Seven in my 2007, and heralding the first appearance of The Cat.
Take a bow Cat Stevens, when you were still using that name. At the start of the 1970s you recorded a string of albums that still sound fabulous today ' Catch Bull At Four, Mona Bone Jakon, Teaser And The Firecat, and my favorite of all, Tea For The Tillerman.
Many songs are a simple voice/guitar combination, with Cat's super-versatile voice taking me through a gamut of emotion every time I hear the album. It's almost a Greatest Hits by itself, featuring several songs penned by Cat that would later be covered by bands over and over again.
Tracks that pretty much everyone knows are there, such as Hard Headed Woman, Longer Boats and Wild World ' but it's the hair-raising Father And Son that really seals the deal for me. I was tempted simply to award 7th place to 'all early 70s Cat Stevens albums' as that would have allowed the inclusion of the best-ever treatment of Morning Has Broken - everything, lean back and CHILL song if there ever was one - originally on Mona, although we'll come back to that track further up the top 10.
Play Tillerman and you'll be reaching for the volume control, to turn it up! I'm usually enraptured by the start of Sad Lisa, a song that just drips melancholy. It's the voice, gentle / strong at exactly the right moments.
My early 1970s musical odyssey continues, further up the charts - although the other artist is an unlikely bedfellow for such a good chap as Cat Stevens.
Take a bow Cat Stevens, when you were still using that name. At the start of the 1970s you recorded a string of albums that still sound fabulous today ' Catch Bull At Four, Mona Bone Jakon, Teaser And The Firecat, and my favorite of all, Tea For The Tillerman.
Many songs are a simple voice/guitar combination, with Cat's super-versatile voice taking me through a gamut of emotion every time I hear the album. It's almost a Greatest Hits by itself, featuring several songs penned by Cat that would later be covered by bands over and over again.
Tracks that pretty much everyone knows are there, such as Hard Headed Woman, Longer Boats and Wild World ' but it's the hair-raising Father And Son that really seals the deal for me. I was tempted simply to award 7th place to 'all early 70s Cat Stevens albums' as that would have allowed the inclusion of the best-ever treatment of Morning Has Broken - everything, lean back and CHILL song if there ever was one - originally on Mona, although we'll come back to that track further up the top 10.
Play Tillerman and you'll be reaching for the volume control, to turn it up! I'm usually enraptured by the start of Sad Lisa, a song that just drips melancholy. It's the voice, gentle / strong at exactly the right moments.
My early 1970s musical odyssey continues, further up the charts - although the other artist is an unlikely bedfellow for such a good chap as Cat Stevens.
# posted by Nesjo : 10:15
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