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The Merseyssippi Blues

4th November 20244th November 2024 funtime65

It’s 4,351 miles between Jackson and Liverpool but nothing between them musically which is why today we’re celebrating the Merseyssippi Blues.

The blues and rock’n’roll-inspired Beatles and Merseybeat assured Liverpool’s place in the musical landscape.

And so it was only natural that when the string-plucking musicos of the Magnolia State decided to branch out.

To mark the Blues beyond their borders they decamped to Liverpool.

To unveil a Mississippi Blues Trail Marker, their first in Britain, at the Cavern Club where the Beatles made their names.

And where the Sixties British musical invasion of America took shape.

And where now stands a special Blues plaque at the Club to commemorate the special relationship.

Devilishly good music

How better then to mark the occasion than through music?

And who better than a Johnson… award-winning Mississippi blues artist James ‘Super Chikan’ Johnson?

Known for his electrifying shows at Morgan Freeman’s Ground Zero Blues Club in Clarksdale.

Super Chikan obvs has a Blues birthright as a Johnson.

Nobody did more for the Blues before BB King than Robert Johnson who sold his soul to play guitar at the crossroads at Dockery Plantation.

Which is the centre point for any music fan’s odyssey on the Mississippi Blues Trail.

Love, love me Blues

If Johnson is Blues royalty then Lennon is Beatles royalty.

And Julia Baird, John’s half-sister, represented the Fab Four, was there to roll out the Blues carpet for the Mississippians.

Of course, just as Johnson’s Crossroad should be on anybody’s visit to Mississippi.

Then the Cavern and the Beatles Story and any one of The Beatles tours out of the club should be on a tourist’s Liverpool itinerary.

And what better than the Magical Mystery Tour, run by Holly Johnson’s brother Jay.

See, it’s all circular.

So if you live on this island why not start your Deep South odyssey at the Cavern Club, the home of the Merseyssippi Blues.

Countries, Music, UK

Dustin down Eurovision Liverpool

10th May 202310th May 2023 funtime65

Of course the party will be missing its biggest reveller with the elimination of Ireland but we’re still Dustin down Eurovision Liverpool.

Now there have been many turkeys over the 67 years of Eurovision.

But only one Turkey, the cult puppet and personal pal, Dustin the Turkey.

And you probably saw him taking pride of place amid the VIPs at the semi-finals.

Eurovision is, of course, the hottest ticket in town this week.

Tourist magnet

Easy Ryder: Last year’s UK entrant Sam Ryder

And it is, obviously, a tourist magnet with 100,000 visitors expected to be in Merseyside this week.

With the attendant spike in hotel rates.

One semi-final under our belts and we can see that the contestants have all got the memo about name checking The Beatles.

With the singers and dancers making the pilgrimage to The Cavern.

Hard Day’s Night Hotel

And many staying at The Hard Day’s Night Hotel, new on my radar but one I imagine could have a hard day’s night and the next morning.

And despite Liverpool beating my own home town of Glasgow to the punch it seems the perfect fit for Merseyside to get Eurovision.

Now we’ve followed The Fab Four from Liverpool, our old stomping ground, to Hamburg… and back.

And it is refreshing to see that in the past 25 years the city has rebuilt itself in their image.

So that you can enjoy The Beatles Story at the Royal Albert Dock and they are getting on board for Eurovision.

As well as the iconic Cavern Club from which tours go out into the Beatles’ Liverpool.

Ours being the Magical Mystery Tour with Jay Johnson, who’ll be Holly’s.

Musical legacy

Of course British hopes will be with Mae Muller and I Wrote A Song.

And the Liverpudlians have forgiven her for being a ‘Landiner’ and adopted her as their own.

As they did myself, a Scottish-type person, in my time there.

There has been a history of Scousers singing in Eurovision, of course, even if they couldn’t get the Beatles to enter.

Cilla Black, a huge singing star in the Sixties, came close but decided to pass on succeeding Sandie Shaw.

She thought it unlikely that the UK would back up Sandie’s win so the UK went for Cliff Richard instead.

Alas his Congratulations was misplaced and he came second, although he blamed, of all people General Franco (some truth in it mind).

We’ll pass over Jemini’s efforts, the duo getting nul points, but there were sterling performances from Prima Donna and Sonia, who both lost out to Ireland.

While it was far from Wonderful Copenhagen for Molly who was 17th in 2014.

Puppet on a string

Still this year Liverpool has two entries really through dint of them hosting on behalf of Ukraine… and they’re bound to get a big political sympathy vote.

Back to my pal Dustin the Turkey and of course he is pure Eurovision following in the legacy of barefooted Sandie Shaw who sang about a puppet on a string.

So I’m right behind him and I’m Dustin down Eurovision Liverpool. Calm down, calm down.

Countries, Europe, Music, UK

Liverpull of Euro music

9th October 2022 funtime65

It is little surprise Merseyside has won the race to host Eurovision for Ukraine because it’s always been a Liverpull of Euro music.

It may have been a surprise surprise (well that’s our big-up to Liverpool’s favourite daughter Cilla Black done).

Yes, Glasgow put together a good bid but who can realistically compete with The Beatles as host ambassadors?

And lifelong supporter of Liverpool Paul McCartney will doubtless be front and centre when Eurovision kicks off next year.

Love me do

It’s apt too that Liverpool should get the nod 60 years on from the release of The Beatles’ first single Love Me Do.

The tens of thousands of Eurovision fans descending on Liverpool next year will flock to The Beatles story on Albert Dock.

They’ll get a picture taken with the statues of The Fab Four at Albert Dock and the Eleanor Rigby monument on Matthew Street.

And channel our inner Beatles at their old stomping ground The Cavern Club.

Tour de four

Take one of the tours around the city and tick off Strawberry Fields, Penny Lane and The Beatles birthplaces.

And you may be lucky too to have a driver with a pop link (everyone in Liverpool is a musician).

Ours was Holly Johnson’s brother on the Magical Mystery Tour.

The invasion of European music fans to Liverpool then is nothing new.

And its place in the continent’s thinking existed too back in the late 50s.

Hamburger thrill

When talent spotters headed to the north of England to find bands to feed American servicemen’s appetite in Hamburg for the new rock’n’roll music.

The thinking was that they would be cheaper than the London bands.

The Beatles were a late pick but they honed their skills on the Reeperbahn with exhausting sets.

While days of seeing and enjoying Beatles music in the German port city are long behind us.

The Stef of dreams

The best Beatles experience you can have there is signing up for Stefanie Hempell’s Beatles tour.

Where she will take you around Hamburg’s Beatles’ landmarks.

And strum her way around their hits on George Harrison’s favourite instrument, the ukulele.

That’s the Liverpull of Euro music for you and why we’re endorsing Merseyside as the best choice for Eurovision 2023.

And that’s coming from a proud citizen of Glasgow.

America, Countries, Music

Get Mac with 80 years of Paul McCartney

18th June 202218th June 2022 funtime65

Being a globetrotting superstar means you adopt fave destinations around the world, and so on the day that’s in it, we Get Mac with 80 years of Paul McCartney.

In My Life (and there will be a few of these) I’ve followed in a few of the Great Man’s footsteps.

So here’s Something Macca-related to add to the Rainy Days and Songdays catalogue from around the world.

Live and Let Liverpool

Liverpool: And back in my days in Liverpool in the Nineties, alas a dilapidated McCartney’s Bar sign was all that advertised that Paul had even been born here.

Liverpool City Centre is all Beatled up now to go alongside the Beatles Story at the Albert Dock and the Cavern Club.

And there are no shortage of Beatles coach tours to take you around Penny Lane, Strawberry Fields, and even Macca’s family home.

And passing the baton along, Holly Johnson’s brother takes the Magical Mystery Tour.

Hamburg on the run

Hamburg: And Hamburg is the city where The Beatles became men.

And where Der Fab Four honed their skills with five-hour sets in the bierkellers.

Ja, and when they were leather jacket-clad Teds.

Let the ukulele-strumming Stefanie Hempel take you down Memory Strasse and give you a Beatles set in St Pauli.

Mist rolling into the sea

Mull of Kintyre: When Scotland claimed the Irish-Scouser as their own.

And Macca gave the kids a taste of Highlands life.

If it’s isolation you’re looking for then the peninsula in the west of Scotland is perfect.

And you can belt out the song yourself on Saddell Bay about seven miles from Macca’s old stead, High Park Farm.

Caribbeatle

I’m all right Jack: Macca with Jack Sparrow

Jamaica and the West Indies: And we immediately associate Macca with Jamaica because of James Bond and Live and Let Die.

And The Green Grotto Caves on the north side of the island.

Macca has become a great fan and supporter of the islands.

Even playing Jack Sparrow’s uncle in Pirates of the Caribbean.

And holidaying with Nancy in St Bart’s at the the Eden Rock Hotel (not shabby).

Sings over America

USA: We know, of course, that Macca has a thing for American women (who hasn’t?)

And while we know too that Jo Jo left his home in Tucson, Arizona, Macca and Linda saw out her last days there on the family ranch.

McCartney and The Beatles, of course, wowed cities the length and breadth of the States including the Hollywood Bowl and Red Rocks.

They are probably most associated with Shea Stadium in New York.

The site US Discover Music will give you a more definitive guide.

And so now we’ve travelled with Macca across the universe and just let it be.

And get the records out because we should all Get Mac with 80 years of Paul McCartney.

Countries, Culture, Music, UK

A Magical Mystery Tour of Liverpool

24th September 202125th September 2021 funtime65

Relax, Holly Johnson’s kid brother Jay has got this one… welcome to A Magical Mystery Tour of Liverpool For Ever

The Magical Mystery Tour is Liverpool’s oldest Beatles tour, dating from 1983, just three years after John Lennon died.

Jay, as you would expect, is full of the witty Mersey repartee for which John and Paul, George and Ringo are famous.

We head out from the Albert Dock on the coach to Toxteth listening to rare renditions of John singing Lonnie Donegan and Gene Vincent.

Bingo, it’s Ringo

In my Liverpool home: And the Liver Birds

Jay points out Ringo’s house and the pub which he used for the cover of his debut solo album Sentimental Journey.

And he explains that Ringo’s mum would play the song on the piano.

Jay reminds us that the city’s airport is named after John Lennon.

And then points out the chip shop named after Ringo.

By George

We pass by all the Beatles boys’ homes, although we aren’t able to stop off at George’s because of Covid.

A two-bedroom house up an alleyway, social distancing was never an option for the youngest Beatle, nor was it for us.

The house in which John spent most of his young years, Auntie Mimi’s, was, in truth, more middle-class.

And Jay reflects on that as Working Class Hero belts out.

Dear John

A born raconteur, our guide also retells how John’s mum Julia, who had reconnected with the family just before her death was run over in a car crash.

And that some kind of justice arrived for the off-duty policeman who was acquitted at the time, when he later became a postman.

And was given Paul McCartney’s route and so became weighed down with the sackfuls of mail for Macca.

Let it be Paul

Paul’s house is our last stop… it was to be his mother Mary’s forever but she only got to stay there a year before dying of cancer.

Poignantly Let It Be which was inspired by a dream he had of his mum visiting him plays out to the coach and we all join in.

Penny Lane, Strawberry Field and the church hall in Woolton Village where John and Paul first met are the most popular spots.

Before they went out to Hamburg to hone their act.

Jay points out the landmarks in the lyrics…

The Barber who shaves another customer is still there, under new ownership.

Penny for your thoughts

While the shelter in the middle of the roundabout is still there.

And Jay fills in how the Penny Lane area played a huge role in the Beatles’ young lives.

For John, Strawberry Field held particularly fond memories.

It was here that he would climb a tree and ogle the girls from the orphanage.

And Auntie Mimi would warn that he would get hung for that.

All of which sparked him to use the line ‘Nothing to get hung about, Strawberry Fields Forever.’

Meanwhile in the Cavern

Jay drops us back at the Cavern Club with the ticket providing free entry.

To listen to the tribute acts in the club where they and music’s finest have graced.

Looking back now, I say, well done Jay.

It really was A Magical Mystery Tour of Liverpool

America, Canada, Countries, Culture, Europe, Ireland, Music, UK

Lennon’s revolution… 80 years a working class hero

10th October 202010th October 2020 funtime65

Life is what happens to you when you’re busy making other plans – John Lennon

We could pick any number to define our times as we mark John Lennon’s 8Oth birthday this week. Suffice to say his was a life lived.., and how.

We’ll never know for sure how he would have spent the last 40 years since his murder outside the Dakota Building in NY.

But it would be safe to assume he would have been at the forefront of all the great struggles of our day.

The Fall of the Wall, Apartheid, Black Lives Matter, Freedom from Covid.

Lennon bestrode his world, leaving his imprint, and still does.

And as his adopted New York celebrated his legacy by turning the Empire State Building blue, here are four Lennon cities.

Liverpool Lou Lennon

Oh Liverpool Lou, lovely Liverpool Lou, why don’t you behave like other girls do?

And we have Yoko Ono to thank for knowing this, that John would sing this song, his Mum’s fave, around the house.

John’s statue stands alongside his pals on the Liverpool waterfront near the Beatles Story museum.

Lennon is everywhere in his home city and the under-threat Cavern Club is a good first stop while let someone else do the work for you on their Magical Mystery tour.

Growing up in Hamburg

I didn’t grow up in Liverpool, I grew up in Hamburg.

Not that John was dissing his home city, it was just that he was giving an honest reply to a reporter.

Lennon and the boys (five of them then, with Stuart Sutcliffe on board and with Pete Best instead of Ringo Starr) lived in Hamburg between 1960-62.

And Stefanie Hempel’s Beatles Tour Das Original will take you all over their favourite haunts.

John was his favourite and she had his poster above her bed.

She will take you to the St Pauli door where he posed for a shot later used for the Rock ‘n’ Roll covers album and much, much more.

John’s New York

If I’d lived in Roman times, I’d have lived in Rome. Where else? Today America is the Roman Empire and New York is Rome itself

While we all know that John died in NY let’s dwell on his life in the Big Apple.

John loved its vibe, its people, its energy and put it down in song on New York City off the album Some Time in New York City.

Dakota Building and the Strawberry Fields memorial where the music never stops are obviously on the itinerary.

For the rest, check out this video.

The Lennon wall in Prague

The Lennon Wall, Prague

What to make of it when you’re told that the Lennon Wall in Prague now has ‘Fuck Trump’ messages on it?

It put off my Czech guide who remembers the wall well from the days when it was an organic centrepoint of protest against the Communist.

‘Appen though John would approve.

And let’s not let Amsterdam and Montreal lie

Of course, this is where John and Yoko had their Bed-ins for Peace.

At the Hilton Hotel in Amsterdam and the Queen Elizabeth Hotel in Montreal.

And I hope that John would approve as I find myself compiling my thoughts here bolt upright in my bed.

While waiting to get back out there travelling again.

Countries, Culture, Music, UK

Britannia? Yacht to try these UK sites instead

31st August 202030th August 2020 funtime65

You know when you live somewhere but never visit that famous site, like me and the Royal Yacht Britannia in Edinburgh.

It can’t be because I take a stand against lavish palaces or ostentatious wealth… I love Rome and the Vatican.

So, I’ll need to get myself along and see how the other half live.

Heck, who am I kidding? It’s how I like to live when our killjoy leaders aren’t closing down all the borders.

But for now, and in the spirit of the Which survey of the best of the top 50 most-visited attraction I give you…

My entirely scientific and undeniably definitive five UK attractions.

Cottage industry

Alloway, Ayrshire: Well, if it was good enough for Wordsworth and Shelley and Muhammad Ali to visit!

Robert Burns’ home village in Ayrshire, the centre point of which is the cottage in which he was born in the 18th century, is a truly spiritual place.

Check out the statues of Tam O Shanter, Souter Johnny, Burns’ father’s grave, the statue of a mouse and Brig o’ Doon.

Robin reliant

The Robin Hood Experience, Nottingham: It takes an outlaw to know an outlaw.

You’ll immerse yourself in Sherwood Forest in an un prepossessing building near Nottingham Castle and get a chance too to twang your arrow.

While actors dressed in costumes of those heroes of legend interact with you.

Chocs away

Cadbury World, Birmingham: And you thought Willie Wonka was an invention, you Willie Wonka.

You can take a cart through the history of cocoa in this chocolate heaven in Bournville (yes, really), Birmingham.

On your tour, you’ll see how chocolate is made and best of all are sent away with a handful of bars.

Daddy’s Little Girl took two handfuls.

Churchillian speech

The Churchill War Rooms, London: And deep within the vaults in Whitehall in the heart of London, Winston and his pals waged the Second World War.

You can see his bedroom, the map room, the decoders.

And when we found all the other sites were closing up for the day they let us in. Well, we were on the right side!

Get back!

The Beatles Story, Liverpool: If The Beatles had been American then they’d have turned their home city into a visitors’ attraction.

Which may seem like a step too far although it does work in Graceland because it is outside of Memphis.

Yes, it’s great to have the museum down by Albert Dock in Liverpool, the bus tour, Penny Lane and the Eleanor Rigby statue.

But the idea that the Cavern Club should be in danger of closure because of financial troubles is a local and national disgrace.

Over to you Paul McCartney… don’t let it be!