Do you ever have those moments when things gather momentum? Something hardly significant occurs, then it develops a sense of meaning, finally you discover a strange confluence that has meaning beyond the simple actions that created it.
It begins with a cartoonist named Baxter who died recently. I’d always been aware of his cartoons. They are droll and sarcastic but without being cruel. They are droll and sarcastic but without being cruel. They are quaint in the best possible way. Often, they involve cowboys doing things that are very non-cowboy. In memoriam, I went in search of the album of his that he’d illustrated the cover for. On it, two cowboys stare into the distance at a plume of smoke. It’s pure Boys Own except for the caption.
For reasons I have no way to explain, I put it onto my record player last night. It was great! The music was a scatter-dash collection of tunes from America, Africa and other places that don’t normally get placed into a sequence on an album.
I cooked dinner and really enjoyed the strange random sequence of choices made by the person who’d produced the record. Dinner was okay. The music was fantastic. Once it was finished I turned off the equipment, sat down to eat. It was satisfying in the sort of way that comes along rarely. I was sated and wanted no more.
I’ve been circumspect about that caption. It explains the first paragraph. Those two cowboys are sharing this thought “Looks like the Sioux have got to another set of James Last albums.” Drawled The Kershaw Kid.
The food was finished. I went to bed early. I thought nothing of the matter other than how appropriate the cartoon was for the tone of the album. I considered how people lead lives that inspire and amuse then simply drift away.
On Saturday mornings I listen to Radio 6. This was the morning after the night before. The first thing I heard was the news. Liz Kershaw was reported as saying she’d lost her best friend. Her brother Andy had died last night.
I’ve been record for years and years. I’ve never listened to it, confident it would be an amusing and exciting dip into the world of music. Then the cover artist died. I got it out. Then, randomly I put it on my turntable and cranked it up. The next day I discovered Andy Kershaw, its creator, had passed away on the day I finally got round to listening to it.
Andy was a sweetheart. You could catch him on the wrong day and he’d be gruff but mostly, when I encountered him in Todmorden he had a smile and a cigarette on his lips, his faithful dog Buster by his side (at least, when I used to see him years ago). Cigarettes were what killed him in the end. Or cancer at least. Still, there’s any number of ways to go. He chose his end.
The last time I saw him was at an event to celebrate forty years of Live Aid. He’d been given the job of presenting it after only having had about four months at the BBC. As he told his tales he really came alive. Live Aid was, for him, that confluence of events, inexplicable and marvellous. He wasn’t past his mid-twenties when it landed in his lap.
Sitting in that room it was strange to consider the way in which he’d interfaced with millions of people in Britain and around the world. Not because he desired that sort of thing but because he loved music. That love opened the world.
Even after his death he was still opening my eyes to new music. That’s a pretty successful Friday night!