June

As the end of flaming June approaches it seems about right that I give you my monthly look back at what I’ve posted. This is the thirteenth offering this month, so what was in the previous twelve? Perhaps unusually for me, four of them weren’t music-related: a minor miracle!

I began the month with the previous review, in Come What May. No deviations from the norm in this, just a set of clickable links to May’s posts. And as I always do I illustrated the title with a song of that name: this one was from a collaborative album from 2016 by Steve Earle and Shawn Colvin, which I think has been rather overlooked.

The eight music posts were evenly divided between Tuesday Tunes and Song Lyric Sunday. Let’s start with Tuesday Tunes. The first for the month was Tuesday Tunes 152: Across The Pond. This was a selection of some of my favourites by North American artists, and I played songs by Neil Young, America, Bryan Adams with Tina Turner, Taylor Swift and Paula Fernandes, Sarah Darling, Caroline Jones, Fishbaugh Fishbaugh and Zorn, and the Traveling Wilburys.

I followed that with my little homage inspired by our departed and disgraced former Prime Minister, in Tuesday Tunes 153: Bye Bye Boris. I couldn’t resist it! The music was from The Who, Del Amitri, Mary Hopkin, Uncle Earl, The Chicks, Wine Women And Song, Steve Earle, and The Beatles, and I also played again the superb spoof on Boris Johnson to a tune by the Beastie Boys. A fitting end to a terrible politician who has done so much damage to this country.

I had collected quite a few songs for that one, so I reprised the theme the following week in Tuesday Tunes 154: More Goodbyes. This one had songs by Simon and Garfunkel with the Everly Brothers, Rod Stewart, Elton John, The Cars, and Billy Joel.

The final one for the month was Tuesday Tunes 155: The Sea. As I have often done, I took my theme from the news: a couple of stories, one of which received massive coverage and one of which didn’t, showing yet again how distorted the news media are in their values. Music was provided by The Beach Boys, Nathan Evans, The Beatles, Bellowhead, and Crosby Stills & Nash. I enjoyed this set!

Turning now to the other regular musical offering I give you. The first of these for June was my most viewed and liked post of the month: this was Song Lyric Sunday: A Taste Of Mac. The theme for that week was blues music, and I went back to the first incarnation of what was then known as Peter Green’s Fleetwood Mac – still, in my view, the best version of the band. I played three of their songs: Need Your Love So Bad, Black Magic Woman, and Man Of The World.

The next theme was to play some British music, and I took the opportunity to share three songs by one of my all time favourites, in Song Lyric Sunday: Magic Cat. Fairly obviously, the “Cat” in question was Cat Stevens, and I played three songs from the 50th anniversary reimagining of his classic Tea For The Tillerman album. Heaven!

The following week saw a variation on that theme, with music from the British Invasion – i.e. from 1964 to 1966, when British acts stormed all over the American charts. This theme had come out of a comments chat I’d had with Jim Adams, who runs this show. I gave you Song Lyric Sunday: The Brits Are Coming, and played songs by The Zombies, The Yardbirds, and The Kinks. Talk about classic British rock music!

For the final one of the month we were asked to play music from 2020 or later. I chose to play a couple of songs by an artist who has a very loyal following and regularly sells out her shows, but I think deserves to be a big star. This was Song Lyric Sunday: Elles Belles, the artist being Elles Bailey, a blues, soul, rock, Americana singer-songwriter from Bristol. I was pleased with the response to this one, as many seemed to be impressed by Elles and her amazing voice. I belong to a fan group for her on Facebook and shared the post there, generating a number of positive comments and a lovely “thank you” from the lady herself. I’d been told how nice she is, and that wasn’t wrong!

That just leaves three more posts to remind you of. These were the midweek ones I like to drop in, between all of the music. For the first one I went right back to the early days of my blog, reworking a post from January 2013 in A Blast From The Past, which took a less than serious look at the sleep problems I was having back then. It was a fun one to revisit.

I then did one of my occasional “taking stock” posts, in Thoughts On Thursday. This consisted of some meanderings through my mind of what I had or hadn’t been doing with the blog, and also posed a question: for some time I had been treating eight as the regular complement for Tuesday Tunes posts, but had been wondering if it was too much of a commitment to ask of readers. I got a number of honest answers to this, and have recently taken to dropping back down to five songs a week, as you may have noticed from the review of these posts above. It seems to be going well so far.

The other post was one which I teased in that one, too. A couple of years ago I began a series of Saturday Smiles, but didn’t really want to go back to that now that I regularly post on Sundays. So I tweaked it, and gave you Friday Funnies, which I hope will become a recurring occasional series, as long as you guys enjoy it. The response to date has been positive, so watch out for more of these in the weeks to come.

That was my June. All that remains is for me to illustrate the post with a song. I did a little research on songs with June in their title and found one I didn’t know before, but rather liked. See what you think:

It’s not exactly a stand out track, but it’s very pleasant nonetheless. Dave Barnes is a singer-songwriter from Nashville, who has released thirteen albums (two of which were Christmas themed) since 2000. This was a track on his most recent, Notes From Paris, which came out in September 2021. He has had a modicum of chart success – both of his Christmas albums have made the US Top 100 (at #80 and #15) and three of his others have, too. He is thought of as a Christian musician, and has had a number of successes in the Christian music charts as well. I’m afraid I can’t find much about Suzy Jones, who sings harmony on this, but she sounds good. There is a singer by that name who also hails from Nashville, so I guess it may well be her. This would be a bit of a departure for her, though, as what I can find of her on YouTube is mostly soul music, but this does sound like the same voice. Don’t you love a good mystery!

So, that was my June, and a little intrigue for you around the closing song. I hope you found something here to amuse and entertain you. See you again on Sunday 😊