From: owner-avalon-digest@smoe.org (avalon-digest) To: avalon-digest@smoe.org Subject: avalon-digest V15 #1192 Reply-To: avalon@smoe.org Sender: owner-avalon-digest@smoe.org Errors-To: owner-avalon-digest@smoe.org Precedence: bulk avalon-digest Wednesday, December 28 2016 Volume 15 : Number 1192 Today's Subjects: ----------------- [AVALON] BF- The Minnesota Connection [Chris Turner ] To leave the list, mail majordomo@smoe.org with: unsubscribe avalon-digest ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: Sun, 25 Dec 2016 02:17:25 +0000 From: Chris Turner Subject: [AVALON] BF- The Minnesota Connection Here's a bit of tomfoolery I noticed a few months ago and thought I would share with you as it's Christmas. Don't take it too seriously. I was pleased to see that BF was to tour the US in 2017, but disappointed to see that Minnesota had been left off the itinerary. In fact to my knowledge The Commander has never played there or even visited the state. Yet there is a strange attraction between him and The Star of the North. It's a pretty unassuming place - .let's face it; it's cold up there. If you've ever seen Fargo, you'll know it's snowbound and populated by a diaspora of Vikings. But Minnesota has us its fair share of world-famous people... The first is Bob Dylan. The recently-ennobled Nobel Laureate was born and raised in Duluth on the shores of Lake Superior. Indeed it was in his home town that he stood just feet from Buddy Holly at a concert only five days before Holly's demise. Bryan Ferry made an album about Bob Dylan's music - Dylanesque - and has used Zimmo's songs throughout his solo career. The second eminent Minnesotan is F Scott Fitzgerald. He was born in St Paul, and is often seen as the chronicler of The Jazz Age. Y'know...'The Jazz Age..?.' Bryan Ferry made an album (or should that be two?) about Fitzgerald's most famous work - The Great Gatsby - and used the title of another - Tender Is The Night - for a song. Perhaps Minnesota's most famous son was the recently-departed Prince, who was born in Minneapolis. The Purple One and BF were well-acquainted having met in The Turks and Caicos Islands. You can read a weird story about that here: http://bit.ly/2ieqBrh. They also met in London of course. Sadly Ferry didn't make a Prince-themed album (although he bloody-well should do. He could really do some of Prince's catalogue justice. Imagine him doing his spin on 'The Most Beautiful Girl or Cream or Sign Of The Times or When Doves Cry. Fill in your own choice; there are so many songs that could work.) but his Royal Purpleness did make some of his Plectrumelectrum album at Bryan's Studio One in London. The last world-renowned person from Minnesota is Grand Rapids-born Judy Garland, and I thought this was where the connection ran out. They did both record You Go To My Head, but it's a bit tenuous, I know. I'd all but given up, when I realised that when Garland died, in a less that salubrious looking flat behind Harrods in the summer of 1969, BF was living and working in Maida Vale, probably no more that three miles away. Small world, huh? Shame BF couldn't get any product out this Christmas. That promised recording of the Albert Hall solo thing in 1974 he was working on sounded interesting but that seems to have gone the way of so many other promising projects. Let's hope we finally hear the debut album remaster next year to mark the 45th anniversary. Have a good one! Chris ___________________________________________________________________________ To unsubscribe, mail majordomo@smoe.org with: unsubscribe avalon ------------------------------ End of avalon-digest V15 #1192 ****************************** ======================================================================== For further info, mail majordomo@smoe.org with: info avalon-digest