The Reverend Will the Thrill Presents the Album of the Week!

Some time ago, my friend Adam was recalling a song he'd heard in his youth.  He never knew the title or artist of the song and could only remember that it had bagpipes in it.  Knowing of my love for music in general and bagpipe music specifically (I've always said it's tied with the piano as my favourite musical instrument), he asked if I had any clue what it might be.  Unfortunately, the only pop/rock songs I could think of that featured the pipes--"Mull of Kintyre" by Wings and "It's a Long Way to the Top (If You Wanna Rock 'N' Roll)" by AC/DC--were not it.  A month or so back, after apparently years of searching, Adam discovered the song was called "Holy Ground," and was recorded in 1994 by the group Traffic.  And the bagpipes, as we discovered, were actually Uilleann pipes, or Irish bagpipes, played by Davey Spillane, who also co-wrote the song.  Frankly, I was taken aback by the whole thing.  I thought Traffic had broken up more than twenty years earlier.  I had no clue they had actually done anything in the 1990s!

As I've often said, I tend to treat my phone as my own personal jukebox.  However, there isn't room to put my entire CD collection on it.  The one thing that this forces me to do is occasionally revisit certain things that are on my shelf that maybe I don't listen to as much.  It's always fun to see something there that maybe I hadn't played in some time.  Frequently, it's like re-discovering a part of my past that maybe I'd forgotten about--sometimes it's like reconnecting with an old friend.  Listening to those albums again frequently takes me back to another time and place in my life, reminding me of certain moments, and often I forget how much I like that music.  If nothing else, it reminds me of why I felt compelled to buy it in the first place.

As you may have guessed, I don't have any of Traffic's music on my phone, but I do have three of their albums on my CD rack.  And while I don't have any particularly poignant memories associated with their music, I am quite fond of it, nonetheless.  It's definitely worth pulling off the shelf and playing from time to time.  Since Adam's (re-)discovery of "Holy Ground," I've had the urge to re-listen to the albums I've got.  I should really get more.

Knowing I'd want to feature one of those albums in one of these weekly "sermons," I've listened to all three of them multiple times over the last couple of months.  It was hard to decide which one to submit.  Ultimately, I think I've come to a good decision.

Traffic had initially disbanded in 1968 after the release of their eponymous second album.  A collection of odds and ends were cobbled together by their label, Island Records, and released as a third album, aptly titled Last Exit, in 1969.  Founding members Jim Capaldi (drums) and Chris Wood (woodwinds) found work as session musicians, and Steve Winwood (keyboards and vocals) joined the supergroup Blind Faith.  After Blind Faith dissolved, Winwood began work on what was initially a solo album.  Feeling he needed more, he invited Capaldi and Wood to join him, thus re-forming the group. (The band's other original member, Dave Mason, who played guitar and sang in the original lineup, had already left the band twice and was not involved in this album.)

The title song was adapted from an English/Scottish folk song.  There have been many renditions of it over many centuries, most notably one by Scottish poet Robert Burns who published his own version way back in 1782.  It also became the group's best-selling album in the U.S., climbing to Number 5 on the Billboard Top LPs chart.  Originally released in 1970, this week please enjoy Traffic with what may be my favourite album of theirs, John Barleycorn Must Die.  (NOTE:  The YouTube link is for the remastered edition of the album which includes a second disc of alternate versions and live performances.)

Until next week, stay safe, be good to your neighbours, and please remember that if at first you don't succeed, then skydiving definitely isn't for you.

Yours in peace, love, and rock and roll!

The Reverend Will the Thrill