Big gap again in the blogsphere due to sales conference which was fun, actually I mean it was fun. I am not being sarcastic.

Anyway I worked like stink for the last 2 weeks to be able to come back, as I did last night, and slow down, perhaps click off in the afternoons, watch TV and eat chocolate biscuits. Then my sister texts me to say that the call we have been waiting for for the last 6 weeks has come in and so tomorrow at 8am I am taking my mum to hospital for day surgery!!! She will need some shopping and errands run on Friday, so today I am cramming in all the stuff I was going to do at my leisure whilst I read emails and take phone calls from colleagues and mates, all of whom sound as if they are slowing down.

God I am angry. Not at my mum, she really needs this proceedure but she will be very uncomfortable over Christmas which is not fair at all.

Anyway - that's my web rant. Back to work.

So Take That are back. Not in my sphere but I appreicate the legions of fans. I wonder if the fans are so in love with them that they are ignoring the fact that they all look very weird.

3 of them look like woodland tramps wih unkempt locks and half an excuse for a beard and then there is Gary Barlow, strangely out of balance visually but the one with the most talent.

Caught them on the Royal Variety Show last night [remember how that use to be peak viewing on a Sunday night? Now it's tucked away in the week with Jonathan Ross as the compere????]. They looked so weird doing dance routines which are centuries old. It did not look graceful or sexy.

Patience is a good, well crafted song though - that's about as positive as I can get.

Let me know your all time favourite Christmas Song!

Christmas usually starts about 3 days before Christmas Eve but this year I seem to have caught the spirit quite early. So much so that I am already listening to a Christmas radio Station through 365.com, called Blue Light Christmas. I thought I knew every holiday song there was until I tuned in - there have some gems.

Which leads me to ask you, what is your all time fave Christmas song?

Mine is Greg Lake's I Believe In Father Christmas, the Prokoviev bit does it for me every time.

At the hospital radio station we have a ton of Xmas stuff and I would like your input to see if there is anything we should add to keep our patients happy.

My holiday bugs have gone and yesterday was my first day back at the gymn. Went OK and this morning I have no aches and pains so haven't lost too much of my fitness level. Feel I am now back in the world and not merely just watching it through think fog. Up at 6.30am to shift some work, just caught up with my friends blogs whilst devouring my cereal and feeling good!

My partner Sara had to leave for London Sunday pm for anearly start conference the next day, knowing I would get weird [hate that time on Sundays between 4 and 6.30pm] I went and played. This means basically going upstairs to the office and turning on the computer and 'doing stuff'.

This time it was digitalising my very tiny vinyl singles collection. I have a huge CD and LP collection but only about 25 single. The mix was good and is now on the magic ipod. Also mixed a CD to send my mate in Canada who I lived with during the time I bought most of this music:-

Captain of Her Heart/Double - cracking smooth song
Seetest Smile/Black - where did they go, ace song
You Spin Me Round/Dead Or Alive - cheese but I love it
Martha's Harbour/All About Eve - beautiful
Don't Rain On My Parade/Barbra Streisand - great show tune
Simple Game/Four Tops - really atmospheric arrangement
Riders On the Storm/Doors - classic!
Lonely Boy/Andrew Gold - another classic of it's kind
Videoteque/Dollar - please do not laugh but I just love this track
50 Ways To leave Your Lover/Paul Simon - only bought this because it has my and my sisters name in it!
A Horse With No Name/America - Cool
Tobacco Road/Nashville Teens - takes me right back
Look Mama/Howard Jones - Saw him in concert - twice!
Hold Me Now/Thompson Twins - Saw them in concert also

That's my recreation for the day, back to work.

I have read this happening to so many others whilst surfing the web and, as we all do, did not think it would happen to me! Last night for some inexplicable reason, I opened Itunes and all my 2,000 carefully and lovingly placed tracks had dissapered!!!! Agh!

I kept cool, rebooted my computer and generally fiddled and they did not come back. After 45 minutes it was clear that they had really 'dropped off'. I had them all backed up on an external drive hard drive but even that would not transfer.

I went on the Apple forums and there it was - directions to Tracker Version website where several ultilitieswere hanging in the ether to download whereby I could transfer all my tracks from my Ipod back into Itunes, a facility which Itune does not have for some godforsaken reason.

I paid a few measley pounds for ipod2PC, a neat, simple piece of software and within several minutes all was safely restored. I have a licensed copy so that is it ever happens again I can grab them back via my Ipod. I even received a personal email from them thank me for purchasing it.

I cannot recommend the software enough. I have now also backed up my entire Ipod tracks to DVD which is a new facility in Itunes. I cannot believe it but throughout the whole ordeal, I was as calm as a cucumber!!!!

As I am still recovering from my holiday bug and feeling better but wiped out, I have had a bit of a TV Fest this weekend and been catching up with some recorded programmes. Last night watched another 'list' show [which I usually give a miss]James Bond's Greatest Hits.

It wasn't bad and included interviews with Don Black, Hal David and Mr John Barry. Was dissapointed that my all time fave, You Only Live Twice was way down the list and very surprised that Thurderball wavered at the bottom also.

I did predict Goldfinger would be top of the list, and I was right!

Best bit was Rita Coolidge saying [tongue in cheek] that 'once you are a Bond girl/singer you are special'.

By the way - have ssen Casinbo Royale and though it was the perfect Bond for 2006 but it has the most unforgettable song by Chris Cornell but a good score by David Arnold. You know you are in re-structured and updated territory when Bond orders a martini and is asked if he wanted it shaken or stirred and he replies; 'do I look like I give a damn!'

This new album from Sting is wonderfully atmospheric. In the very generous sleevenotes he says that it had been put to him that his 'unschooled tenor' would suit John Dowlands 16th century songs. I feel it is a brave and bold thing to record and applaud all musicians and singers who go into unknown territory - but the limitations of his voice does show here. Not so much in the range which he does manage to acheive, but in the phrasing which I just could not take seriously from someone with such a rock pedigree.

But Edin Karamazov's lute playing is sublime and the CD is worth buying just for this.

Stings readings of Dowlands letters are very flat which is also another minus. Again, with reference to the sleeve notes, he writes of music; '...it's strange power over our lives, it's infinate possibilities, and it's mystery.'

I am not sure that I will listen to this very often but I am glad I have it in my collection as I think I have every album Sting has done.

Explanation of title: Sting was given a lute as a gift and the design in the centre of it is a labyrinth.

I caught up on BBC's fab Listen Again option, with a documentary on Dusty Springfields classic album DUSTY IN MEMPHIS. How good it is that somehwere [and you do have search a little]there are still shows being recorded of depth and value and in this instance, a whole hour devoted to just one album. They should consider making this format a weekly show.

It is well researched and presented and made me want to listen to the whole album again which I duly did. This is probably a well known fact but it was the first time I had heard it - Dusty was so intimidated by the superb line up of producers and musicians who were working with her on the album, that she actually couldn't overcome her nerves in the Memphis studio's and so did not sing at all in Memphis. She cut the vocal tracks in New York. Somehow DUSTY IN NEW YORK doesn't really make for a great title does it?

Dusty's manager said something profound during the show and that was that she considered Dusty's voice to be a sound, a unique sound more than a unique voice; she said that Barbara Streisand was a vocalist and that Dusty wasn't - she was a sound.

The album was released in 1968, I have a remastered copy on CD which was released in 1995. It flopped upon it's release, probably because of the diversity of the tracks and the deep, soul groove she really wanted to record which were very different from the 'pop' songs in her recordings so far, and did so brilliantly. But the album has now become, and deservedly so, a classic. The textures in her voice on this album show us everything Dusty could be.

Son Of A Preacher Man is the key track and she makes it a very believable track. She uses a higher register on the complex Bacharach song In The Land Of Make Believe. Dusty was a great Carole King fan and proved this by including 5 Goffin/King track - Don't Forget About Me being the most soulful.

The racy and ultimately sexy Breakfast In Bed works really well but one of my faves is a very early Randy Newman track called Just One Smile. For me, she sings the ultimate version of Windmills Of Your Mind here, slowing it down a little, making the words mean more. On Willie & Laura Mae Jones you can really hear her getting into the full Mowtown groove. And it ends with a perfect rocking track What Do You Do When Love Dies.

Age does not wither this album whatsoever - it is flawless.

Been away from the old blog for a while due to the manic rush everyone has a few days before you leave for a holiday - all in an effort to get up to date before the plane leaves the runway. It's always futile as you come back to even more work and hassle, but we do it all the same.

Have to say that I have had the Holiday from Hell. Cape Verdi is supposedly the hot, hip and happenin' place to buy property at the moment. Here's my adive: DON'T! A friend recently purchased an apartment and gave it to us for a week free of charge for our honeymoon. All started to go wrong at Gatwick when we boarded, sat for an hour then had to get off as something was 'malfunctioning'. A six hour wait in quite a pleasant departure lounge I have to say and then we were off.

The apartment had no electricity on arrival but it was soon sorted. No gas and when this was sorted it leaked so we couldn't cook. There was inadequate netting against mosquito's, no air conditioning and then 2 days in - no water as the salination tank had a problem! After 3 days we decamped to a hotel run by Italians who had disco music blaring poolside all day and continually tried to get you 'involved' in games.

I got a stomach bug and my partner - a cold. probably all day to stress. The island [Sal] itself is barren, dirty with one or 2 OKish restaurants and nothing to do outside of water sports. It's one huge building site at the moment and when it's fully developed it is going to be an enormous, ugly concrete jungle. OK, OK, I know it is bringing money to an island that badly needs it but there should be a limit to the development but of course because greed is the motivating factor, the westernisation will be limited.

I have come back ill, tired and sad that there are very few places in the world left to explore where original cultures prevail.

I am off to the movies now to loose myself in the new Bond movie and David Arnolds score.

Hope you are all faring better.

Love Amy Winehouse's REHAB - just about to download it from the Apple Store. Had her first CD FRANK but just didn't like it.

Don't rent PRIME with Uma Thurman - it is so boring and you just know what is going to happen from scene to scene. Meryl Streep OKish but not as hysterically funny. I also hated THE DEVIL WEARS PRADA! - dreadfully shallow and pointless. Loved THE QUEEN which I did an Orange Wednesday on last week. Mirren is phenominal as is the rest of the cast except for the awful actor who plays Charles. He actaully played it as a caricature whilst the other actors really got into character as it were.

Best DVD in a while was Spike Lee's, who's work I don't usually like, INSIDE MAN. Very clever and I didn't work it out till the last frame. You have to get over all the heavy politcal references which is pure Lee, but it's worth it. Jodie Foster was excellent in a rare 'bitch' part.

Saw FEAR OF FANNY on BBC3 with Julia Davis who was very good even if she didn't go for the deep voice of the real Craddock. Have yet to watch the recent Cracker and Prime Suspect which I have taped.

Just come back from a fab weekend in Northern Ireland, what fantastic beaches and dales. Went into a really old pub in Port Stewart and listened to some live Irish music. When I say listen, you didn't have much choice, the decibel din was off the scale. What with the music and my half pint of Guinness, I enjoyed the craic!

More vinyl to CD tonight with a magical 1952 recording called ELLA & ELLIS. The smooth voice and perfect phrasing of Ella Fitzgerald and the sophisticated piano playing of Ellis Larkins. With the track listing below you just can't go wrong. It's perfect in everyway and the LP was in excellent nic except for 2 tracks.

How romantic are these titles eh? Plus I don't think anyone [Not even Sinatra] sings Someone To Watch Over Me as good as Ella.

ELLA & ELLIS original recordings cut in 1952
This compilation on MCA Records 1983
SIDE ONE
I'm Glad There Is You
What Is There To say
People Will Say We're In Love
Please Be Kind
Until The Real Thing Comes Along
Makin' Whoopee!
Imagination
Stardust
My Heart Belongs To Daddy
You Leave Me Breathless
SIDE TWO
Baby What Else Can I Do
Nice Work If You Can Get It
Someone To Watch Over Me
But Not For Me
Looking For A Boy
I've Got A Crush On You
Soon
Maybe

New layout to celebrate my first year of blogging. Not sure if I like it but I think that's just because it's different - what do you think?

"Davy has no sense of what wasn't allowed" so said someone in the sleeve notes of the 1964 classic flok album FOLK ROOTS NEW ROUTES Davy Graham on guitar and Shirley Collins singing - which I have just gotten as a present from my partner on CD.

Graham's guitar playing is so attention grabbing that, I hate to say it, but you almost forget that Collins is in there as well singing. His strange arrangements and masterful playing hits you immediately with track 1 NOTTAMUN TOWN. Then when you get to track 4 BLUE MONK which is his first instrumental on the album, you are completely sucked in.
Track 6 REYNARDINE is where you first hear Graham's flirtation with Hindustani music, a track which does work on guitar but one you can imagine being divine on a sitar.
This album is a very different world of music to me and I am not yet
fully attuned. All the titles seem to be in a different language and don't mean much to me. And I am not sure if I will ever be a total convert to folk music as I always find that the high pitch of the female singers is not rich enough for me.
Track 8 RIF MOUNTAIN, another Graham instrumental is a brilliant composition and is quite magnificent, more so than his famous track ANJI which does not appear on this CD.
Whilst it is important that these really old songs are recorded to CD for ever, I feel some of them are mislaced when being sung by Collins. BOLL WEEVIL HOLLER for example which is a song about corn fields in Texas, really needs a knarled male voice with a blues slant to it.

Off to belfast on business this afternoon till Sunday. Ipod already in the bag loaded up with Elvis Costello's The Delivery Man and Ry Cooders Chavez Ravine.

..more later.

Still working but still got the turntable on!

Got to get out and do some errands but am waiting for the rain to stop.

So next for the conversion programme is a fab album by Elton John. Now I am not a huge EJ fan, these days he's just schoomsy plus I hate the way he sings in that pseudo American accent plus I don't actually like his voice that much. It was much, much better in the early days, softer instead of the 'belter' style he seems to have adpoted recently.

When I say this LP is great, not the whole put some parts are really great and it took me right back to when I use to play it years ago, I have even asterisked the titles which were my fave on the cover. And it's actually those track which have made it onto my ipod today.

There are some real credits on the sleeve, Terry O'Niel did the space agey cover, Tom Robinson co-wrote the sublime [and sad] gay ballad Elton's Song and most of the LP was engineered by James Newton Howard. There are 2 wonderful instrumentals included which is probably why the album was a commercial flop as it is a bit of a midge modge, Carla Etude and Fanfare. God, it was good to hear them again and the well scored song about love gone cold, Nobody Wins.

If you have this LP in your collection, dig it out and have a re-listen. It's worth it.

THE FOX 1981
The Rocket Record Company
SIDE ONE
Breaking Down Barriers*
Heart In The Right Place
Just Like Belgium
Nobody Wins*
Facist Faces
SIDE TWO
Cala Etude*
Fanfare*
Chloe
Heels of the Wind
Elton's Song*
The Fox

* - ipodded.

Could it get any darker? Today I feel I have a real case of SAD syndrome made worse bt the fact that I have probably had one of the best summers of my life. I know it's the seasons and it's the way the planet works and all that stuff but quite frankly I need the sunshine and I need to be outside more than in!

My speed of work today is somewhat in the tortoise realm and to cheer myself up I am ploughing through my old vinyl at the same time.
As I am taking them as they are on the shelf, the next up was Bridge Over Troubled Water by S & G. Found that I had all the tracks on CD anyway so moved on to Wet by Barbra Streisand. Would have skipped over this one but my partner is a big Barbra fan so have converted to vinyl accept for one track which was jumping.

It's a concept album and a fairly contrived and insipid one at that,
The front and back covers has Babs in typical 'wet' poses in the bath, all steam and bubbles with a strategically placed water droplet on the bottom lip of her partially opened lip.

Starts with the self penned Wet which actually is quite good but not a leader track at all. Then a limp rendition of Mercer & Arlen's Come Rain Or Shine which ends with a lot of irritaing and false laughs. Splish Splash is vaguely reminiscent of Status Quo and then we fall into the slushly Bergman and Hamlisch stuff she favoured in the 70's.

The one biggie of course is the duet Enough Is Enough with Donna Summer which still stands up and gets the feet tapping.

Here's the rundown:-
WET CBS Label 1979
SIDE ONE
Wet
Come Rain Or Come Shine
Splish Splash
On rainy Afternoons
SIDE TWO
No More Tears [Enough Is Enough]
Niagra
I Ain't Gonna Cry Tonight
Kiss Me In the Rain

No this is not some new music I have discovered, I am in Frankfurt for the Bookfair. Over 2 days I had 10 appointments, one with an extremely tall Vienesse man who was terribly nice but terribly tall - even when sitting down. I am back in my hotel room now and thinking of what the hell I can do until I get up at 4.30am to catch my 7am flight home.

I hate travelling unless it's a holiday and I especially hate being alone in a hotel room. I have promised myself a Jack Daniels later in the bar until then it will be some yoga [I have not been very relaxed over the last 2 days and am a little knotted], something to eat, the JD then settling down to watch THE LIFE OF BRIAN on my laptop.

I have enyoyed my ipod walking to the Messe and back, a touch of the Beautiful South and then the new Diane Krall album.

I am missing my partner and am glad I have this blog to while away 5 minutes and catch up on all my friends blogs!

Guten Tag!

Hope you are all having as much sunshine as me today, I just do not want to let go of summer.

Still on my vinyl journey and dare I tell you what has graced my turntable? For fear of you never reading my blog again I will divulge:

POPULAR CONCERT No. 2 Arthur Fielder & the Boston Pops Orchestra.
And I even lifted a track - Greensleeves, along with Gershwins Summertime, these are my 2 top tunes. The cover of this LP is a sick pink with an equally sick looking, way-to-close-up of Arthur himself complete with large liver spots.

But the cover of the next LP is a real 60's peach. It's TIME TO PLAY Russ Conway. And call me naff but I have lifted Roulette and Side Saddle for my download to the ipod purely because my mum use to play the spoons to these 2 tunes!

Not only is Mr Conway smiking on the cover but what you can't see is the Russ 1 number plate on the Rolls Royce. Heady days eh?

Hope you are all having as much sunshine as me today, I just do not want to let go of summer.

Still on my vinyl journey and dare I tell you what has graced my turntable? For fear of you never reading my blog again I will divulge:

POPULAR CONCERT No. 2 Arthur Fielder & the Boston Pops Orchestra.
And I even lifted a track - Greensleeves, along with Gershwins Summertime, these are my 2 top tunes. The cover of this LP is a sick pink with an equally sick looking, way-to-close-up of Arthur himself complete with large liver spots.

But the cover of the next LP is a real 60's peach. It's TIME TO PLAY Russ Conway. And call me naff but I have lifted Roulette and Side Saddle for my download to the ipod purely because my mum use to play the spoons to these 2 tunes!

Not only is Mr Conway smiking on the cover but what you can't see is the Russ 1 number plate on the Rolls Royce. Heady days eh?

Hope you are all having as much sunshine as me today, I just do not want to let go of summer.

Still on my vinyl journey and dare I tell you what has graced my turntable? For fear of you never reading my blog again I will divulge:

POPULAR CONCERT No. 2 Arthur Fielder & the Boston Pops Orchestra.
And I even lifted a track - Greensleeves, along with Gershwins Summertime, these are my 2 top tunes. The cover of this LP is a sick pink with an equally sick looking, way-to-close-up of Arthur himself complete with large liver spots.

But the cover of the next LP is a real 60's peach. It's TIME TO PLAY Russ Conway. And call me naff but I have lifted Roulette and Side Saddle for my download to the ipod purely because my mum use to play the spoons to these 2 tunes!

Not only is Mr Conway smiking on the cover but what you can't see is the Russ 1 number plate on the Rolls Royce. Heady days eh?

Here we are on a Saturday and I am working BUT listening to my next piece of vinyl at the same time. Just read an ad logo saying 'There's a 5 till 9 as well as a 9 till 5', quite agree.

My next treat is a Quincy Jones LP called AROUND THE WORLD. And it's a fave 60's theme for albums, diffrent pieces of music flavouring countries from around the world.

The cover is also typical of the 60's, in fact name me a 60's LP that has not got scattily dress females on the front. This is an orchstral LP and is very lush in part and very listenable and cosy altogether. Another fact, if we listened now to these orchestral lead albums of very sophisticated and warn tracks as we did then, would we not all feel a little better about things? Even the titles are cosy: Sedish Warmlands [as daft a title as England In The Dry Season]. No, I am not getting old [only older] and no, I am not advocating that we get comatose listening to elevator muzak. This LP is well removed from prozac induced tones.

Starts with a fantastic Japanese track Hot Sake. African is ablaze with drums and testament to Jones having studied tribal rhythms. The glorious Meadlands depicts Russia and was a song he use to sing at school [wonder why in cold-war USA?]. The twist is the jazz crve he puts in it.

Side2 not quite as good as 1 but has a beautiful Brazilian track Baia which Edmundo Ross could not have arranged better. Mack The Knife is a curiousity as he does in Oompah style!!

The whole lot has been burnt onto CD for many a spin.

AROUND THE WORLD
Quincy Jones and his orchestra.
Mercury Records 1961
SIDE ONE
Hot Sake
Strike Up the Band
Africana
Meadowlands
Rico Vacilon
Under Paris Skies
SIDE TWO
Mack The Knife
Manolete De Espana
Baia
Come Back To Sorrento
Swedist Warmland

My sister and I have not really had any time together since my August Wedding. In the euphoric rush up to it we saw a lot of each other but we were loosing valuable work time and so in the 'catch up' period we've had no quality time.

My partner is away tomorrow night at a Conference so Jac [sis] and I are going to spend the evening together and no doubt talk ourselves silly. It's blighted a little as my mum is in hospital yet again so we'll have to do the visit before we settle down.

We have a common love of music and I regularly make CD samplers for her. So just managed to burn the latest which is the most eclectic I have done. Has blues, reels, soul, The Stones, Borneo Horns and a drum track [Jac has a kit]. Here's the rundown:-

1. I Wish I Was A Punk Rocker - Sandi Thom
2. Is It Any Wonder? - Keane
3. What So Never The Dance - Bootsy Collins
4. Garden Of Eden - Heather Small
5. Respect Yourself - The Staple Singers
6. Dance Music For The Borneo Horns - Lenny Pickett
7. The Real Blues Reel - Brendan Power & Mick Kinsella
8. Twice A Week - Miles Gloriosus
9. If You Don’t Give Me What I Want - Vicki Anderson
10. Elemental Force : Xing To - Various
11. Crazy - Alanis Morrisette
12. The Green Fields Of Antrim - Paddy Fahy
13. Rain Will Fall - The Rolling Stones
14. You Are In My System - Robert Palmer

I just can't seem to narrow the gap between my blogs at the moment which is a real drag. Work, life and trying to swim straight and upright through out it, takes it's time. But why am I typing this as you all know it. Onwards to the music.

Next LP to get the ipod or onto CD treatment is the brilliant 1983 album Pride by the late Robert Palmer. Sound so bad typing 'the late', still cannot belive he has gone and was it my imagination or was his parting only lightly covered. Where were the tribute programmes?

I started to record this onto my hard disk as I wanted to do a straight transfer to a CD but horror of horrors, it's not in good condition which doesn't really surprise me as I played it to death.
Got most of the tracks I really liked so have dropped them onto my hard disk.

I didn't like his Jamaican influenced track but was always amazed that he got away with them. The guy really had 'groove' and it was double attractive because of the sharp suits and haircuts he inhabited. Loved all the layers of this album, the drama of Want You More. The sex in Dance For Me. The enigmatic Silver Gun and the classic You Are In My System. Strangelt on hearing it for the first time in a while I thought that Side 1 is timeless but Side 2 is very 80's.

Here goes:
PRIDE Island Record Label 1983
SIDE ONE
Pride
Deadline
Want You More
Dance For Me
You Are In My System

SIDE TWO
It's Not Difficult
Say You Will
You Can Have It [Take My Heart]
What You waiting For
The Silver Gun

If you are a Palmer fan treat yourself to his last album which is bluesy and one where he just recorded for himself knowing it wouldn't be a chart topper. It's a gem, it's called DRIVE.

1949 - 2003

Vinyl LP number 3 for the 'treatment' All Systems Go is probably her weakest LP. For me it has one fab track and that's Dinner With Gershwin, love the lyrics. The rest is 80's dross. Shame but I think she is only really best remembered for those breathy Moroder produced number Lover To Love You Baby', all of which were quite something at the time but today seem quite tame [though I still love them]. For a real treat check out her version of McArthur Park!

A quick surf didn't show a direct website but there are a host of fan based ones and apparently she is still out there doing her stuff though one of the websites referred to her high years as 'smut fest' tracks!

ALL SYSTEMS GO
Warner Brothers Label 1987
SIDE ONE
All Systems Go
Bad Reputation
Love Shock
Jeremy
Only the Fool Survives
SIDE TWO
Dinner With gershwin [only track to make it to the ipod]
Fascination
Voices Cryin' Out
Thinkin' Bout My Baby

I'm obviously on a mission tonight - number 2 LP to get the ipod treatment is DREAM INTO ACTION Howard Jones. I loved this guy and I clearly remember seeing him in concert with my sister. He was wearing his orange jumpsuit and went barefoot. I always admired his ethics and have just gone onto his website www.howardjones.com and read that he is a Buddhist, which is no surprise. It influenced a lot of his lyrics. He is also still composing and still looks good.