"Don't Sit On My Jimmy Shands" . Richard Thompson . Rumor and Sigh
Hello friends. HDHYHT has been on a protracted hiatus, and I have no one but a new job, a new place to live, and all sorts of life responsibilities to blame. But the three people (warning: self-deprecation mode) who regularly read the blog kept after me to revive it, and I fell for their flattery. So, here it is. I’m toying with the idea of some rotating guest bloggers, and maybe a new post a week…we’ll see how it goes. It seemed only fitting that the “D” in “HDHYHT” would be offered first shot: I’m always honored when I get a chance to scribble a bit for this blog, but writing the first piece in a while posed certain concerns. Should it just pick up where it left off---perceptive and witty writing about music that may (or may not) have escaped you—or should it have some deeper thematic element as a nod to the occasion? I opted for the latter; after all, I’m “D”. So, a trio of tunes by singer- songwriters that have some over-arching connection with the idea of records seemed a fitting way to get HDHYHT up and rolling again.
Part ONE of THREE: Richard Thompson, guitar god and newly OBE, should rightfully have a blog devoted solely to his music. Perhaps there are several, and I only need to Google them. But Thompson has always seemed like a “private pleasure” to me, and I prefer coming across people one at a time who know and love his music. If they can quote from “Did She Jump or Was She Pushed” from the masterwork Shoot Out the Lights, they can pull up a chair and I’ll buy them a drink. This isn’t the place to cite the jazz, Scottish, folk, and R & R influences on his work, but it’s hard to resist in the tune I culled from the Mitch Froom-produced Rumor and Sigh, “Don’t Sit On My Jimmy Shands”. Jimmy Shand (that’s Sir Jimmy Shand to you MBE fans) was the widely-acknowledged “King of Scottish Dance Music”, who put out a single a month in the 1950s, is credited with recording more tracks than the Beatles and Elvis combined, and released a retrospective entitled The First Fifty Years—how can you not love that? In the attached video, you can see him late in life playing his “big hit” “The Bluebell Polka”, produced by that George Martin. Thompson’s tribute is a rollicking, blowsy number that wouldn’t be out of place played by the master himself in some pub in Fife—you can almost hear the crowd joining in. Favorite line: “Just don’t rest your cheeks against my man.” As a bonus, no one should miss out on Thompson’s cover of “Oops…I Did It Again”—here recorded as part of his show 1000 Years of Popular Music.