MOJO August 2020

FIFTY YEARS AGO THIS SEPTEMBER, THE FIRST GLASTONBURY Festival – or the Pilton Pop, Blues & Folk Festival, as it was then known – took place in Somerset, with a bill featuring Steamhammer, Quintessence, Stackridge and, at the top, Marc Bolan’s Tyrannosaurus Rex. Since then, the celebration of live music in bucolic surroundings has become a critical part of our summers: a chance to binge on a surfeit of bands, and other things, far away from our normal lives. This year of course, that traditional escape isn’t possible. But as a small consolation, MOJO’s intrepid bookers have secured a heavily-stacked line-up for this very special CD. Welcome, then, to The MOJO Festival 2020, a compilation of live tracks from many of the world’s biggest and best artists. The risk of bad…

Billy Gibbons ZZ TOP’S ENDLESS BOOGIER What music are you currently grooving to? The best! All the usual suspects starting with, and, most likely ending with, Jimmy Reed. Howlin’ Wolf, Jimmie Vaughan, The Red Devils… gotta love the guitar meanderings from Jimmy Nolan on James Brown’s tracks. Venturing into some unexpected lofty realms with the likes of Jimmy Buffett, Rodney Crowell, Graham Bond, Long John Hunter, The Specials, Madness, Chrissie Hynde, Elvis Costello, even the real ZZ Top Rhythmeen recording from ’96. What, if push comes to shove, is your all-time favourite album? Some Girls, Rolling Stones. Released in ’78 after we appeared with ’em in Hawaii in ’72. The mesmerising effect takes hold as soon as the platter takes off. Really good stuff… I’m a fan! Hell, any disc from The Rolling Stones. What was…

FIFTY YEARS AGO THIS SEPTEMBER, THE FIRST GLASTONBURY Festival – or the Pilton Pop, Blues & Folk Festival, as it was then known – took place in Somerset, with a bill featuring Steamhammer, Quintessence, Stackridge and, at the top, Marc Bolan’s Tyrannosaurus Rex. Since then, the celebration of live music in bucolic surroundings has become a critical part of our summers: a chance to binge on a surfeit of bands, and other things, far away from our normal lives. This year of course, that traditional escape isn’t possible. But as a small consolation, MOJO’s intrepid bookers have secured a heavily-stacked line-up for this very special CD. Welcome, then, to The MOJO Festival 2020, a compilation of live tracks from many of the world’s biggest and best artists. The risk of…

WHEN WE BEGAN PUTTING TOGETHER this issue of MOJO, lockdown was still, fatefully, over a fortnight away. On Thursday, March 5, Paul Weller turned up at a West London photo studio full of energy, moves and ideas. “Music is something you’ve always got to be thinking about,” he told Danny Eccleston that afternoon. “Like an athlete or a boxer, you have to keep training.” In the long intervening months, I’m sure we’ve all stayed in the game, one way or another, by tending to our musical obsessions. Playing records and editing MOJOs have been as much of a pleasure as ever, regardless of the challenges of our new working environment; thank you, once again, for all your support. A gig or festival would be nice, though, and so this month’s CD…

Billy Gibbons ZZ TOP’S ENDLESS BOOGIER What music are you currently grooving to? The best! All the usual suspects starting with, and, most likely ending with, Jimmy Reed. Howlin’ Wolf, Jimmie Vaughan, The Red Devils… gotta love the guitar meanderings from Jimmy Nolan on James Brown’s tracks. Venturing into some unexpected lofty realms with the likes of Jimmy Buffett, Rodney Crowell, Graham Bond, Long John Hunter, The Specials, Madness, Chrissie Hynde, Elvis Costello, even the real ZZ Top Rhythmeen recording from ’96. What, if push comes to shove, is your all-time favourite album? Some Girls, Rolling Stones. Released in ’78 after we appeared with ’em in Hawaii in ’72. The mesmerising effect takes hold as soon as the platter takes off. Really good stuff… I’m a fan! Hell, any disc…

“None of us would want to be less than we were.”PHIL MAY ETERNAL DELINQUENTS The Pretty Things and their magnetic frontman Phil May, who has died following hip surgery after a cycling accident, were never short on influential admirers. Bob Dylan included them in Tombstone Blues in 1965, while fan David Bowie covered their songs and allegedly listed May as ‘God’ in a ’60s address book. When May’s chronic emphysema obliged the Pretties to retire their electric formation in December 2018 at London’s Indigo at the O2, Van Morrison and David Gilmour were there to pay homage. Yet this outsider group could never be fully rehabilitated. Born on November 9, 1944 in Dartford, and raised between his mother and her half-sister, May’s was a complicated childhood. A student at Sidcup Art College,…