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Wednesday 27 October 2010

Johnny Marr News And Stuff




Local hero, Bagging Area role model (haircuts, dress sense, beautifully inventive guitar playing- OK maybe not the guitar playing. Don't manage the haircuts that well either) and all round good guy Johnny Marr has contributed a track to a download only compilation for the homeless charity Centrepoint. If you head on over to centrepoint.org.uk you can find his cover of the 1969 Rabbit Mackay song Tendency To Be Free, and download it for 99 pence. All the tracks on the album are from 1969, the year the charity was founded. I'd never heard of Rabbit Mackay before, and while the original is on youtube I've not been able to find an mp3 of it to post, which was my intention and I'm not posting Johnny's cover, cos it's for charity innit. Johnny applies some blistering guitar, a cool bassline and some good vox, ending up with a stomping, abrasive song which is well worth just under a quid of your money.

Johnny Marr's charitable work has directly impacted on my family. My son I.T., who has various needs (severe learning difficulties, severe deafness, skeletal problems, various other things, is currently going through puberty- we have some interesting times at the moment!) used to attend Pictor School, a special needs primary school in Timperley. It goes without saying it's a fantastic school, and when I.T. left to go on to secondary this year tears were shed all round. Johnny Marr's nephew attends the school, and a few years back Johnny and the U.S. trainer firm PF Fliers put out a limited edition signature pump, sold on ebay with proceeds split between Pictor School and an Autism charity. That's a picture of one of them up at the top. Obviously I bought a pair. It was funny how someone whose records I'd bought since the mid 80s and followed avidly had this link to my life and our son. Johnny popped in at the school at least once, and promised to come back and play guitar with the kids- I'd love to have seen I.T. playing guitar with one of my heroes, and questioning him relentlessly about what day his binmen come, which supermarket he shops at and whether he uses the bus or the tram (all I.T. obsessions).

So, without rambling on too much more, I'm not posting the Rabbit Mackay cover but you can have this instead, Johnny Marr covering Bob Dylan's Don't Think Twice It's Alright. This was given away with an issue of Uncut magazine back in 2005. A decent acoustic cover version with some good harmonica- and it's not often I get to type that.


Johnny Marr - Don't Think Twice, It's Alright.mp3#1#1

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

Hi

Today, "Tendency to be free" by Johnny Marr is no more avalaible; MAy you help ?

Thx