Day 2

CD#6 Van Morrison - Astral Weeks

A classic. Apparently.
I like Van Morrison a lot but this was hard work - according to Wikipedia:
"Except for John Payne, Morrison and the assembled jazz musicians had not played together before and the recordings commenced without rehearsals or lead sheets handed out."
Well to me it sounds like some of them were playing along to a different backing track in places and there was one point where I wondered if somewhere in the process of re-mastering for CD the left stereo track had slipped out of sync with the right, so much so that it was really hard not to skip to the next track.
Some of the songs are ok but others just seem to be everyone noodling away with no regard for what anyone else is doing.
Maybe I should pick up an old vinyl copy to see if my CD version is part of the problem, I doubt I'll be rushing back to this for a while.

CD#7 Graham Parker - Howlin' Wind
This is much more like it, great tunes and a group of musicians all playing for the songs, not just mucking about. I haven't bought the most recent album because they were so good around this time and I fear that time might not have been kind to them (this may not be true but I'm scared to find out).
You don't mean a thing if you ain't got that swing!

 CD#8 Meshell Ndegéocello - Bitter

Fewer grooves and a bit more introspective than some of her stuff, but none the worse for that. I do like a bit of Meshell, though for me she's one of those artists who's more of an occasional special treat rather than something to be listened to every day.

CD#9 Boo Hewerdine - Harmonograph

This is a collection of songs written both alone and in collaboration with other people that had their first airing played by other acts and until this album had not been recorded by Boo, including Patience of Angels, which was originally a single from Eddi Reader. Boo's got a wonderfully delicate voice and there are some great songs on this.