Category Archives: Music

Graham Edge drummer and inspiration behind The Moody Blues – RIP

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Graham Edge – source ABC.net.au/AP Photo/David Richard


From my first listening to Every Good Boy Deserve Favour, there is no time that I have not enjoyed listening to The Moody Blues. I was introduced to them by a school teacher who proved to be the biggest musical influence of my life – he also introduced me to Dylan and Springsteen and sparked a mini revival of Richard Harris’s version of MacArthur Park in my home town.
Edge who died aged 80 this week was pivotal to The Moody Blues.

Edge was a founding member of The Moody Blues, who when formed in the early to mid 1960s had a typical Mersey beat style about them. Their hit Go Now was the most memorable of that incarnation. The band progressed to be an early proponent of Prog Rock.

The Moody Blues were distinctive. Edge’s poetic introductions to songs were part of that, but as I realised when I saw them in concert for the last time a few years ago, their distinctive style was the drumming. Yes, there were soaring vocals, and harmonies but through it all the drumming was central. Just listen to the drum solo to I’m Just a Singer if you need reminding.

Justin Hayward is quoted in The Guardian saying “Graeme’s sound and personality is present in everything we did together and thankfully that will live on.” Just as his drumming was central to the Moddies sound, he was central to the band’s very existence.

I was lucky enough to see the Moody Blues twice. They still had it even in their early 70s, when if my memory is correct Edge said perhaps my favourite ever concert line, that he’d been lucky enough to live through the 60s twice. At 80 his time has come for which I’m very sad but also grateful for the music, his drumming, his poetry and the Moody Blues.


The first pop song I ever heard

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I was in the car with my daughter with the car radio tuned to Cruise 1323, a local hits and memories AM radio station and on came “It”s Good News Week” the 1965 hit by British pop band Hedgehoppers Anonymous. As the opening beat commenced I knew exactly what it was and said to my daughter that it was the very first pop song I ever recall hearing.

It would have been on a large sideboard type valve radio my Grandfather had given to me. I was lying in bed, with the with radio tuned to 5AD. As I write the memories flood back of the time and DJs Big Bob Francis and John Vincent flood back. They are both now dead but were icons of our local radio scene in the 1960s and 1970s. Vinnie continued well into the 1980s when commercial FM launched in Adelaide. Big Bob was a late night talkback radio host for many years. 

Its Good News Week, just two minutes and five seconds long, Continue reading →

My most listened of 2019

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As 2019 closed I often wondered what songs I’d listened to most as I have sat at my desk “chugging away” on my PhD. Spotify dutifully obliges each December with a listing of what I have listened to the most on that platform. I haven’t only listened on Spotify as I like the Stingray platform that comes with our PayTV subscription, particularly they 70s Chanel. I also listen to some vinyl, so it’s not a complete picture but it will be pretty close.

My year’s listening was dominated by 70s music and Springsteen’s Western Stars.

It wasn’t a surprise that the songs from Western Star dominated. I have blogged previously on how much I like this album, so I won’t spend a lot of time writing about it again, except to say that it is definitely my album of the year with Tuscon Train my current favourite from the album.

From there it was largely 1970s music. Continue reading →

Puff the magic dragon

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As I was working on the last section of my Research Methodology chapter which at the time of writing stands at an absurd and definitely to be edited 63 pages before appendices, a childhood favourite came up on the Spotify playlist – Puff the Magic Dragon.

My parents loved Peter, Paul and Mary and as kids, their music was regularly playing on the family radiogram. There aren’t a lot of music artists that I have in common with my now late parents but Peter, Paul and Mary was one of them.

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Father’s Day 2019 and Springsteen’s Western Stars

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You just can’t top a hand-painted card from your one-year-old grandson as the best present you could ever get on Father’s Day.

The card was the surprise and highlight of my Father’s Day.

What was not a surprise was my children giving me Bruce Springsteen’s latest album “Western Stars” on vinyl. It is quite possibly the best Springsteen album since Born to Run!

Yes, a big statement but its one I’m going with. I have pretty much had it on continuous play since it was released on Spotify. Now I can play it on my Rega Planer turntable.

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