New Year Birthdays on the Tube

reviews, news & interviews

A series celebrating musicians' birthdays.

30 December 1910: Enough of all the seasonal jollity. With any luck, yours was more real than forced. The other side of New Years is, for many of us, a certain existential panic. What happened to the last year? How did we do? How the hell did it go so fast? And, more scarily, though hopefully invigoratingly, how many more do we have left? Paul Bowles, best known as author of The Sheltering Sky, wasn’t a musician exactly, but was a musicologist (the peerless collections of the Moroccan music he recorded are in the Smithsonian). In 45 seconds, he sums up the feeling. “How many more times will you watch the full moon rise? Perhaps 20? Maybe less.”

{youtube width="400" height="300"}-Ddf-8hVNOY{/youtube}

29 December 1946: The connection of Paul Bowles to Marianne Faithfull is via the Rolling Stones - Bowles wrote the sleeve notes to the album of Moroccan Joujouka music recorded by the Stones' guitarist Brian Jones and she boasted of having slept with three of them. Here Marianne Faithfull is, with her first hit, the very image of the English rose.

{youtube width="400" height="300"}FhPPJ5dolxU{/youtube}

Fifteen years later, in 1979, she has been homeless and a junkie. But this ravaged song performance, with a Super 8 video directed by Derek Jarman, is rather a good advert for having a period on drugs, at least artistically.

{youtube width="400" height="300"}0KV-PTK0UZ4{/youtube}

30 December 1942 and 1945: Mike Nesmith and Davy Jones of the Monkees share a birthday. They were never taken seriously by critics who dismissed them as a manufactured band, which they were (and the Sex Pistols weren't?). This tune is a classic by Neil Diamond.

{youtube width="400" height="300"}XfuBREMXxts{/youtube}

Less of a good advert for drugs, the Monkees' baroque dopefest of a film Head came out in 1968. Here's the trailer.

{youtube width="400" height="300"}XPEYkA2TZoA{/youtube}

30 December 1928: Some artists, though, seem to change very little once they've hit their stride - Bo Diddley mined his Latin-based signature rhythm through several decades.

{youtube width="400" height="300"}HICsPNm2ARY{/youtube}

29 December 1876: Pablo Casals playing a Bach Cello Suite in 1954. This really is timeless. Happy New Year.

{youtube width="400" height="300"}xBp_R_RcbEw{/youtube}

Support the future of arts journalism

Subscribe to theartsdesk.com

Thanks so much for choosing genuinely independent arts journalism theartsdesk’s mission has never been more important – in an age of relentless algorithmic recommendation, sponsored content and unreliable AI, the expertise and discernment of individual critics deeply embedded in their specialist areas is absolutely vital.

If you want more of that in your life, why not subscribe now?

If you do this before the 31st August, you’ll be able to keep at this “founders rate” for life: your subs will never increase! You can choose to subscribe annually for just £40 simply click here
or monthly for £5 per month simply click here.

Not ready to subscribe?

If you want to support with a little extra or aren’t ready to subscribe just yet, there’s also the option to give direct to our crowdfunder to support our imminent redesign and exciting expansion with new features and collaborations Simply contribute here: https://gofund.me/c3f6033d.

However you choose to be involved, you can proudly say that you are picking the right side in the battle for truth and humanity in the modern information landscape. And we will be very glad to have you on board!