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The cover of BOO |
I've About four years ago I made
the big decision to clear out my cupboard. This
meant wading through box after box of and saggy
brown tapes containing songs from way back when,
songs I barely remember, obscured as they had
been by the demise of reel-to-reel and my
subsequent failure to upgrade and update. Of the
many tapes, one of them was my 1973 album BOO.
I hadn’t heard it for over
twenty years, though the songs remained in my
head and occasionally aficionados amongst the
audience would yell out Frog In The Jam! or
Weeds In The Yard!
So I solemnly sat myself down with one who
knows, and who had the necessary techno
facilities, and we transferred about 100 songs
onto DAT and one of these was BOO. Believe me,
that was an emotional afternoon. I then
ceremoniously threw the ancient brown tape away.
Done, I thought, move on.
So imagine my surprise when one summer’s day in
2005 I am standing in my kitchen minding my own
business when I get a phone call, one of those
phone calls you cannot ever imagine happening,
absolutely off the radar screen.
He introduces himself as Richard Moreton Jack .
He is a fan of BOO and is editor of RECORD
COLLECTOR magazine and wants to include BOO in
his all-time top-ten favourite most over-looked
records. You could have knocked me over with the
proverbial feather. I asked him how he had heard
of BOO: he told me he had been browsing in a
vintage record shop and spotted the monkey, as
it were.
Those of you who know the cover
will know what I’m talking about.. He was
intrigued enough to buy it, liked the songs,
then set about finding out if the artist was
still alive.
I am a relic in my own lifetime,
a collector’s item. And yes, he and Sunbeam
records want to re-release it on CD and vinyl.
The irony here was that Richard wanted to master
it from the original 15ips but that had hit the
municipal dump four years previously. Motto
here, NEVER throw anything away!
So BOO’s moment has come again. I think it
sounds wonderful, sweet and yet strangely
sophisticated. I was a mere babe when it was
recorded, perhaps I’ll leave the arithmetic to
you, good reader.
I am looking forward to doing
some small gigs later in the year, hooking into
the re-release. Sort of going back to whatever
my roots were or should have been, if that
doesn’t sound mangled. It has been quite magical
receiving e-mails from people who have memories
of BOO, keep ‘em coming! I hope too that people
will hook into my newer stuff……I didn’t end in
1973, I just kept re-inventing the wheel….but
they do say life goes in a circle. It’s been a
long way round.
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