Glasto time again

It's Glastonbury Festival time again and as usual I'm not there. Those who made it are enjoying good weather for a change. But newswise there is a lot of competition. We have an election on Thursday when, most of us hope and pray, the Tories will be voted out. There'a a rather sad contest taking place in the States between a befuddled but basically decent Democrat and an evil lying Republican. What a choice! And there's sport going on as well. The Euro football is reaching its climax, with all England fans hoping for improved performances, India has just won the T20 Cricket World Cup and Wimbledon starts on Monday. Everything happens at the same time it seems. Glastonbury continues to attract thousands of people, but there's fairly little that interests me. Looking through the line up it seems that Cold Play have taken up residence in Somerset and that Shania Twain has been promoted to 'legend' status. P J Harvey, Dua Lipa and Cyndi Lauper (pictured below) are among the acts that have attracted most approval so far. Other than those there are many performers whose names mean nothing to me: no genuine roots acts that I can see and no one who I can get really excited by. There are a few who are of some interest, such as Femi Kuti, Michael Kiwanuka (whose female co star is pictured above), the Skatalites (none of whom are originals), Steel Pulse, the Manfreds, Albert Lee and the Gypsy Kings.

For the first time in many years I won't be going to the Porretta Soul Festival this year. There are precious few original soul acts who are still performing and I can't raise much enthusiasm for the line up this year. Hopefully I will be back next year. I haven't given up on festivals, but it's getting really hard to find a schedule that excites. That's an age thing I guess - although I live in hope. Meanwhile my local village, Odiham in Hampshire put on its annual 'Bands In The Bury' music festival today featuring local groups of varying quality. The photo below shows the Accelerators, a ska band from Basingstoke.

Latest music deaths

Another soul man has passed on, this time Bertram Brown. He wasn't a major name but was a member of Memphis group the Newcomers, who had success in the early seventies with 'Pin The Tail On The Donkey' and 'Keep An Eye On Your Close Friends', both on Stax. He was the brother of Randy Brown who made an excellent impression when he appeared at the Blackpool Soul Festival in 2019. Bertram (pictured above) was one of his backing singers that day.

A female soul singer has also died - Angela Bofill, at the age of 70. Born in New York of Cuban and Puerto Rican heritage she had a lengthy career as an R and B singer/songwriter, her best known recordings being 'This Time I'll Be Sweeter', 'Angel Of the Night' and 'I Try'.

Another female singer who passed on recently, at the age of 80, is Francoise Hardy, a chanteuse who was one of the few French singers to make a big impression in the UK during the 1960s. Francoise was always the epitome of cool and her light sexy voice always sounded good, particularly on sad songs, whether she was singing in French or English. She found success initially with 'Tous Les Garcons Et Les Filles' for Disque Vogue. She made an impact in the UK in 1964 with a version of 'Catch A Falling Star' and 'All Over The World'. The following year she had success in the US as 'The Ye-Ye Girl From Paris'. She went on to have a long singing career and also acted in a number of movies. She also took an interest in astrology and wrote several fiction and non-fiction books.