The old music and the new music.

In the old days our parents told us that you could never understand the lyrics in old songs. It was all terribly muddled, totally incoherent and quite frankly a load of rubbish. My late dad, did once though shower praise on that legendary Welshman Sir Tom Jones. Jones, he said, had the most extraordinary voice, a voice so powerful that it almost echoed around the Welsh valleys and then carried resonantly across the Pennines. It soared melodiously across the lakes and rivers of Britain's fair and green land and then stayed in the British consciousness rather like some classical piece of art.

Our parents believed that the big band wartime sound  of Glen Miller, Tommy Dorsey, Duke Ellington, Joe Loss, Count Basie and all the greats of that era were the greatest, most striking and stunning of all sounds. They played the kind of music that brought people much closer together and lifted the spirits of the world with a definitive style and flourish. Dad spent most of the war in the Hammersmith Palais jiving, cavorting and carousing and then romantically smooching with his dancing partners before gloriously finding my mum 20 years later.

When I came along in 1962, the Beatles arrived with a phenomenal flourish. It was Love Me Do, Hey Jude, Strawberry Fields, Sergeant Peppers, the remarkable Yesterday and a whole repertoire of experimental and epic compositions. The Beatles were one of the most gifted musicians and songwriters that the world would ever produce. Their music spanned the generations and frequently pushed back the cultural and musical boundaries. The Beatles were exquisitely inventive, good looking, smartly dressed and played music that had genius and lyricism written all over it.

And then the good old or bad old days came along and spoilt it all in some loud, crashing, thumping, pounding, unbearably loud mess. It was horribly noisy and excessively stentorian. It was as if you were ears being attacked by some wild and uncontrollable force of nature. It was the glam rock era of David Bowie, T- Rex, Sweet, Mud followed by the edgy and anarchic rebelliousness of late Seventies punk with the Sex Pistols, the Clash, Blondie, the Undertones and the Jam, groups with a sharp identity and growling, snarling defiance.

 And then there was Eric Clapton with his faithful and magical guitar, a guitar that had its own voice, its own very unique expression and a fundamentally important message.  Then there was Gerry Rafferty, a marvellous wordsmith with poetry in his soul, a genuinely warm melody in his head and Baker Street, a brilliant piece of artwork that brought the 1970s to a memorable conclusion.

Listening to BBC Radio 2's the Sounds of the Seventies introduced by the supremely professional Johnny Walker, it suddenly occurred to me another generational gap has once again appeared. The music that I'd listened to during the 1970s no longer bore the same kind of relevance, no longer mattered to today's 21st century movers and shakers, no longer seemed applicable to anybody in particular. It was music that was as far removed from today's Spotify and I- Tunes era as it was possible to be.

When Walker played Wings Listen to What the Man Said I began to think that I'd got terribly stuck in some stifling time warp. Listen to What the Man Said was released just over 40 years ago and although splendidly pleasing to the ear no longer felt musically appropriate. It may well just have been some medieval throwback or  17th century choral piece.

Then Walker featured Free and then Bad Compay. But most of us can still remember what seemed like the hard aggression of Meat Loaf, Led Zeppelin, the deeply imaginative and occasionally mystical Pink Floyd, wonderful remnants of the 1960s. And then by the contrast, mainstream music gave us  the smooth Stylistics, the teasing Temptations, the permanently stylish Detroit Spinners and the cultured  Four Tops, grouips who'd regularly decorated both the American and British charts with a gentle gloss of sophistication during the 1960s.


Now of course 2016 has thrown up yet another lively musical palette of both the sublime and the ridiculous. Groups such as Coldplay, Radiohead and Snow Patrol monopolise the music scene with an almost flawless control. Adele, Ellie Goulding, Beyonce, Lady Ga Ga, Michael Buble, Ed Sheeran and the very latest reality TV products are almost a million miles away from the golden grandeur of Glenn Miller and all of those wartime virtuosos. It was a world where trumpets and trombones and uplifting pianos were all thrown into one delightful mix of big band harmonies and instantly identifiable show tunes.

So there you have it. The heady, dizzy days of Frank Sinatra, Bing Crosby, Tony Bennett, Sammy Davis Junior, have now sadly departed to some jazz club in heaven. Their legacies and memories will  never be forgotten, cultivated crooners with honey in their voices. You Tube though will always provide me with Tavares, Al Jarreau, the Whispers, Kool and the Gang, Shakatak and a whole gallery of the great and good. To quote Louis Armstrong. What a Wonderful World.