Features

One of a bunch of interesting Record Store Day exclusives just turned up for this week’s playlist; a lovely EP from Bonnie ‘Prince’ Billy that involves Jonathan Wilson in some capacity, and features covers of Leon Russell and Merle Haggard.

When he first toured the UK with The Blasters, in 1981 or thereabouts, Dave Alvin was a swaggering young yahoo in rockabilly duds with a 50s quiff, attitude to spare and the unblemished good looks of someone still fairly new to what the rest of his life would become, the bulk of it since spent mostly on the road, playing whatever bar, club, juke joint, tavern, theatre, festival, hootenanny or hoe-down that would have him.

How to tell whether Jack White has brought his male or his female band along to a show? As the suited roadcrew prepare the stage at the Forum, one suspects the answer might be in the drumkit, sheathed until the very last moment; something about the positioning of Daru Jones’ bass drum, perhaps?

A couple of years ago when I was in Woodstock to interview Simone Felice and his band, The Duke & The King, Simone drove me around the mountains where he’d grown up, pointing out places of local and historical interest. These included Big Pink, the house on Parnassus Lane in West Saugerties, where Dylan and The Band recorded The Basement Tapes.

To celebrate the life and music of Levon Helm today, I’ve been collecting your favourite songs and clips of him over on Twitter @JohnRMulvey.

Fairport Convention founder, solo artist and folk-rock guitar legend Richard Thompson is featured in Ch-ch-ch-ch-Changes in the latest issue of Uncut (May 2012, Take 181), out now. The songwriter appeared in My Life In Music in our February 2009 issue, speaking to Terry Staunton about his favourite cuts, from Les Paul to Klaxons… __________________________________ The First Record I Bought Roy Rogers – A Four Legged Friend (1952)

Last year, I spent a fair amount of time listening to a mighty blown-out Philadelphia band called Purling Hiss, whose mainman Mike Pollize was sprung from another excellent local band called the Birds Of Maya.

Business somewhat overshadowed this morning by the awful news about Levon Helm. Over the past couple of days though, these are the records we’ve been playing in the Uncut office.

If you can't quite make it out, that’s Chuck Berry’s signature, top left in the picture above of a couple of pages from the April issue of Uncut. It was sent to me by Uncut reader Scott Ford, who lives in St Louis, Missouri, home of course to the immortal Chuck, and was accompanied by a great email that I’ve copied below.

BBC4’s fine night of Southern Rock programming was still on my mind yesterday morning when I arrived back at Uncut, and a bit of chat about the shows at my Twitter feed eventually lead to a crowdsourced Southern Rock Playlist.