Yes, today is the first day in September: where the hell did August go! It feels like only yesterday that I sat down to recap what I had posted on my blog in the previous month, but that was four whole weeks ago – time is moving inexorably onwards. As is my custom, I’m giving you a reminder of the past month’s offerings from me, in case you missed any or are possessed of an inexplicable urge to revisit some.

I posted thirteen times in August, all but one of them were music themed. Let’s get the odd one out done first, shall we? It was, of course, the previous month’s review, and took the form of Goodbye July. It contained the usual references back to that month’s posts, and I concluded as I always do with a song vaguely related to the month: in this case it was a nice little song by Shayna Leigh. I hadn’t hear of her before, but was looking for some inspiration for ‘July’ songs and found hers. I thought it was rather nice, and it gave me a good title for the post, too.

The remaining twelve pieces comprised the regulars – five Tuesday Tunes and four Song Lyric Sunday sets – plus a mixed bag of three others. Starting with Tuesday Tunes, my first post of the month – on 1st August – was Tuesday Tunes 160: Muscle Shoals. This followed on from the previous Sunday’s post, with a further selection of tunes recorded at the famous Muscle Shoals Studio: music was by R.B. Greaves, The Rolling Stones, Lulu, Rod Stewart, and Paul Simon.

I followed that with Tuesday Tunes 161: Guilty, which was my offering in ‘honour’ of a certain former US President who may eventually get what he deserves – a lengthy prison sentence – though knowing him he will find a way to blag himself out of it. Probably by lying, if his track record is anything to go by. I cheated a bit with the songs, as they were an updated and reworked set from a previous post in the series, two and a half years ago. They were by The Clash, Thin Lizzy, Elvis Presley, Bob Marley & The Wailers, and Sam Cooke.

The next week saw Tuesday Tunes 162: A Wrecking Crew Encore, my second piece in the month which followed that week’s Song Lyric Sunday theme with some more tunes that fit the bill. These came from The Byrds, Mason Williams, The Righteous Brothers, Richard Harris, and The Beach Boys.

I took a slight change in direction for the next post, with Tuesday Tunes 163: US Cities. The seed for that was planted by my earlier Song Lyric Sunday piece about the Wrecking Crew, and it gave me some great music from Mott The Hoople, Simon & Garfunkel, Marc Cohn, Graham Nash, and Ike & Tina Turner.

The final one for the month was prompted by a comments chat on the one before, as the idea of doing US states came up, and I immediately went for the obvious one in Tuesday Tunes 164: California. I had to leave some good ones out to keep it down to five: the tunes that made the cut came from The Beach Boys, Led Zeppelin, Red Hot Chili Peppers, The Mamas & The Papas, and The Eagles. Much to my surprise I seem to have found a video that no one has yet told me they couldn’t see because of a ban by the Eagles’ record company!

That takes us on to Song Lyric Sunday. The first for the month was to play something recorded at Sunset Sound Studios in Hollywood. Luckily for me, one of my favourite albums by one of my all time favourite artists was recorded there, and this gave me Song Lyric Sunday: Pretending At Sunset. If you haven’t seen this one, there are no prizes for guessing that I played two songs from Jackson Browne’s album The Pretender, including the title track, of course.

I’ve already given you a clue to the next one, which I covered in Song Lyric Sunday: The Wrecking Crew (Who?). If you haven’t seen it, this was intended for us to play something which was backed by the Wrecking Crew, a loose affiliation of incredibly talented musicians who played on sessions for some of the biggest names and the biggest hits in the late Sixties and early Seventies. I gave you two songs, by Simon & Garfunkel and The Monkees, and then followed up with the Tuesday Tunes post I mentioned earlier.

The following week’s task was to play something which encompassed the Nashville Sound. At first sight this didn’t look too promising for me, but as I read more I found that it had developed into a style which became known as ‘countrypolitan.’ I duly gave you Song Lyric Sunday: Countrypolitan, which comprised two songs by the wonderful Linda Ronstadt, another of whom I have been a fan for more than fifty years.

The final one for an August Sunday was to play something of the Memphis Sound. Although I wouldn’t class this as one of my favourite musical styles I’ve liked a lot of it since I was growing up, and so it wasn’t hard for me to give you Song Lyric Sunday: Memphis Sound. For this I played two songs, one each by Eddie Floyd and Otis Redding. The Eddie Floyd one is particularly worth watching, as it is a video of him performing at the White House at the age on 75, having lost none of his talent and ability for entertaining.

That just leave the three lone posts. The first of these was a sad one for me to write, as it was a tribute for the passing of someone whose music I had enjoyed since I first heard him back in the Sixties. The piece was entitled R.I.P Robbie, and was for Robbie Robertson, who was one of the founder members of The Band and then went on to have a long solo career. I played five songs by The Band and two of his solo ones: all are excellent and show what a talent we have lost.

For my midweek piece the next week I retuned to my occasional series of Listen To The Band, which was long overdue a reprise. I picked a good one, in Listen To The Band: Crosby Stills Nash & Young. In this series I take a slightly more in depth look at the featured artists, and play a few more songs than usual. There were eight in total, six by the CS&N trio version and two including Neil Young. All are incredibly good songs – again, these are guys of whom I have been a fan since the Sixties, and they make great music with wonderful harmonies.

That just leaves one more for me to cover. This was last week’s midweek offering, and is a follow up to something I have done before. The piece was Some More New Music, and it did exactly what it described on the tin. This is something I’ve done a few times, and as its title suggests it is a round up of some of the new music I’ve been listening to which has been released in recent months, and which I thought you might like to hear too. The songs in this episode were from Old Crow Medicine Show, Morganway, Cowboy Junkies, Great Lake Swimmers, and Yusuf/Cat Stevens. Some of those might be unfamiliar names to you, which possibly explains why the post has respectable stats but was the lowest performer in August. If you haven’t seen it, do try it: you might surprise yourself and actually like some of them!

All that remains is for me to share a song with you. You’ll see that I have changed one word from the song to get my own title for this piece. It comes from a name you’ll probably know, but as it was just an album track you may not have heard it before, even though it was released more than fifty years ago:

I think that is rather lovely. The First Day In August was a track on Carole King’s album Rhymes & Reasons, which was released in November 1972 – i.e. two albums after Tapestry. It gave her another big hit in North America, reaching #1 in Canada and #2 in the US, but did less well over here, only spending two weeks in the UK Albums chart and peaking at #40. The song was co-written by Carole with Charles Larkey, who was her bass player and also, at that time, her husband – the second of her collection of four.

So, that was my August. I hope you enjoyed what you saw and heard on my blog, and that I’ll see you in September – the music starts again on Sunday! Until then, take care and stay well and, if you’ve been trying to get a plane into a UK airport – welcome back! 😊