One (of the many) lessons I learned later in life was that categories of music are, like the words of certain politicians, not to be believed.
It wasn’t until I hit the South by South West music festival in Austin (Texas, USA) that I learned that real Country and Western music is nothing like the Country and Western music we get to listen to over here. And a good bunch of years previously I had a similar learning with Folk music when I was introduced to it ‘in the wild’ and oh my that was a wonderful experience.
Since those 2 occasions I’ve come not only to distrust ‘music categories’ as broadcast, print, and Internet media would have us believe they are, but also to consider that material I had previously enjoyed should fall under the banner of one – or both – of those categories.
I have been a big fan of Jackson Browne for more decades than I care to think about but Wikipedia tells us that ‘Jackson Browne (born October 9, 1948) is an American rock musician, singer, songwriter, and political activist who has sold over 30 million albums…’. Yeah, that’s a big pile of camel dung. Singer/songwriter/musician/political activist – absolutely. But rock musician? Nah, his work spans so much more than that narrow category. Same too of Warren Zevon (who, incidentally, crossed musical paths with Jackson Browne on several occasions). I’m never going to get to the US again – the latest edict from the Orange Emperor that US Border Control must have access to 10 years of my social media and 5 years of my emails automatically precludes me from even applying. But I would have loved to see Jackson Browne, Don Henley and other musicians of work so uncategorisable, descriptions are difficult to come by. The chances of them turning up in either Birmingham or Nottingham is slim so I’ll have to content myself with some live performance vinyl (I am considering closing Spotify down in favour of Qobuz).
The simple thing that started these random musical thoughts running was this morning I heard Kristan Toczko playing a cover of Metallica’s Nothing Else Matters on a grand harp and I was struck by how lovely it was to hear a heavy metal ballad transformed into something else: