I hear that James McGrath has submitted his PhD on Lennon and McCartney and some of the findings are being introduced eg to the LastFM wiki on Lennon. It just goes to show how much there is to find out even after all these years. (I heard somewhere that a lot of sources on how the Kinks went about recording in the 60s have disappeared and that they won�t get their due in terms of studio innovations.) Paul W tells me that I get an acknowledgement in the thesis � I am not sure why as what I remember from our exchanges is me learning about Imagined Communities. There�s an interview with James McG here:-

http://www.icce.rug.nl/~soundscapes/VOLUME12/Interview_McGrath.shtml

My history of Elektra has arrived safely from the US � it comes with a sampler CD. I looked up Judy Collins in the index and discovered that early on in her Elektra dealings she suffered a lot of personal stress on health and marital grounds. I must be careful not abandon Miss M and jump into all the gossipy stuff about Elektra � there seem to be many many sources put together in the book. Some of In My Life was recorded in London in the summer of 1966. They knew they were onto something not least with two of the first songs that Leonard Cohen had written. Judy Collins still has tremedendous respect for Joshua Rifkin although its worth remembering that his treatment of Both Sides Now is roughed up by Whitesell in comparison with the nuances Miss M builds into her original guitar accompaniment for the song. (And then there�s the 2000 version with the big orchestra and Wayne Shorter)

I have skimmed the section where Jac Holtzman hears the Paul Butterfield BluesBand (an Elektra band) playing Maggie�s Farm with Bob Dylan and he sees that the world will never be the same again. He had heard the Rolling Stones during a trip to London and tried to sign them. His next attempt to sign an electric band is The Loving Spoonful but they go to another label. Then Jac goes to LA and finds Love who are very well prepared and four albums in total get made quite easily. Arthur Lee refuses to tour which limits the success of the band.

The Sampler CD is all acoustic folk and blues and doesn�t seem to have any documentation. A few tracks stand out like Tom Paxton , Incredible String Band and Paul Butterfield.

I belong to LinkedIn but I am not very active in developing it. Yesterday someone from Brazil approached me with a link. I had mailed him last week with a Slideshare request which he granted. Another of my links is off to Singapore and Hong Kong for 11 days.

Yesterday Laurence was teaching at Sunningdale which is where we first met and so there wasn�t time to dig further into SR. I mention Sunningdale (and Laurence) in my LinkedIn entry � which is generally speaking pretty thin on detail although today I did put a link through to this diary. I toyed with putting a link to the LFM library but concluded that that would be too frivolous. A new topic of investigation has appeared � something I knew a great deal about three or four years ago.

LFM played the B 52s� Mesopotamia which I have only ever heard with a Detroit techno enhancement to the rhythm. I was rather appalled at how weak the original groove sounded. LFM also chose the Miles of Ailses version (1974) of Miss M�s Big Yellow Taxi � which drives very nicely and sets off nicely the new version on Shine - currently one of my favourites from the album.. The algorithm also seems to have taken a shine to Judy Dyble.

A Mighty Wind was on ITV late Sunday night � I caught about half of it and was gently amused. The word is that its not as classic as Spinal Tape but even so its good fun. Apparently it was Tom Rush who first recorded songs by Joni Mitchell (Circle Game), James Taylor (Something in the Way She Moves) and Jackson Browne (These Days). I think Nico has the edge on the latter.