Track of the week
When I was at school, every October half term we would go to Mansfield to visit relatives, staying with Granma & Granpa Waite at (55?) Beck Crescent.
One year – I think, probably when I was in the lower sixth, so Jane & Rog were not there as they had gone off to uni – I made an important, and life changing, discovery.
A year or two earlier, Granpa had been made redundant – he didn’t seem to perturbed, he was due to retire within a year – and with some of his redundancy money he bought a music centre: turntable, cassette deck and radio all fashioned into one long unit.
But that wasn’t my discovery. No, my discovery was piece of black plastic – “Stax Soul Explosion” LP. I guess that it was originally (uncle) Tony’s or Rick’s, but had been left at home. And boy, what a discovery it was – some of the greatest tracks I’ve ever heard were on that album. The next day I went out and bought myself a C90 tape cassette and recorded the whole album and for years to come I played that tape. I don’t know what ultimately happened to it, but its music is now ingrained in my soul.
And on it, I discovered The Staple Sisters belting out this brilliant track (which, I’ve since learned, was a cover of the original by the band The Band) and another – A Long Walk to DC.
Play it, enjoy it, take a load off Annie, and put the load on me.