Jo and I had taken the short stroll back from Anne and Leslie's about 1 am this morning and the stars were twinkling beautifully so I thought there was a good chance I would get some golf today - but it wasn't to be. Maybe just as well - we had a lovely meal last night but it's getting harder to fully appreciate the food when eating late at night - we always feel stuffed. It's an age thing I guess, but we enjoy the company and we'll carry on doing it - after all, it's not that often!
So when we got up today we both felt a little tired - and, frankly, I was quite happy to have a day at home and miss golf. I'd even decided that I wasn't going to get dressed, but just slob around today - until I found out we had no milk, so I had to get dressed to go out for that and the Sunday Times.
Anyway, I've been catching up with paperwork this morning - not work - just bills etc - whilst watching the golf from Qatar - it's just finished, so now it's FA Cup football - there's Cardiff - Arsenal now, then Liverpool - Everton later - Colin might come round to watch that one - particularly as our wives are going out for a church supper talk early this evening.
The door bell just rang - it was John from number one offering to take our Christmas tree to the tip - he'd asked me a week ago and I'd told Jo about it when I was away, but when Ross and I went to look for the tree, it was gone. Jo's just returned from church and I asked her about it and she said she gave it to John a few days ago. Strange - and then a penny dropped - she thinks she actually gave it to Andy at number 6!
The latest edition of Mojo arrived yesterday - they call it the March edition - in January! I'm just finishing off the February one which heavily featured the 50th anniversary of Tamla Motown - no doubt everyone's seen and heard about all the radio and TV shows to celebrate the occasion. Tamla was so strong in the 60's, but less so after that. It was the sound of young, mostly black, Detroit and went on to influence music all around the world.
Mojo's main feature was Tamla's top 100 records and I really enjoyed reading all the stories. I'm sure there are some of my favourites that didn't feature in the their top 100, but there were so many records, it's hard to remember them all. The most regularly featured artistes in Mojo were:
Marvin Gaye (13 nominations)
Stevie Wonder (11)
Temptations (9)
Miracles (8)
Four Tops (5)
Supremes (5)
Martha & the Vandellas' Dancing in the Street was voted number one in Mojo, but it's never been a favourite of mine - perhaps I'm still cringing at Mick Jagger and David Bowie's duet for Live Aid back in 1985? The Supremes were OK, but they, too, never quite hit the right nerve centres with me - although Where Did Our Love Go? was pretty decent.
There were lots of others who only featured once or twice but made classic records - even the Jackson 5 started here - remember I Want You Back and ABC? Tamla was a huge influence on the British groups who eventually dominated the world's pop music. The Beatles early albums featured several Tamla tracks and for this reason alone, I would include some of these tracks in my personal top 10, which, if I also had to pick one each from Mojo's most popular artistes above would make my top 12 look like (in no particular order):
Marvelettes - Please Mr. Postman
Contours - Do You Love Me?
Mary Wells - My Guy
Isley Brothers - This Old Heart of Mine (weeps for you)
Barrett Strong - Money
Edwin Starr - War
Jr Walker & the All-stars - Roadrunner
Smokey Robinson & the Miracles - Tracks of My Tears
Marvin Gaye - I Heard It Through the Grapevine
Stevie Wonder - Living for the City
Temptations - My Girl
Four Tops - I Can't Help Myself
Strangely, other than the time Kelly, Jo and I went to see Gladys Knight in Las Vegas, I've never seen a Motown star live. On that same trip in 2000, we enjoyed a couple of evenings in the Paris hotel, listening to the house band, who were excellent and featured a guy who used to play with the Temptations. One of his former band members was in the audience and he was eventually encouraged on to the stage and they performed a wonderful version of My Girl, complete with the all the dance actions.
This also brought to mind another evening when we popped in to the Barbary Coast hotel and listened to the house band (Backstreet) there. The lead singer was called Storm and he serenaded Jo and eventually persuaded her to be his back-up vocalist on Marvin Gaye's What's Goin' On?:
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