What Music Are You Listening to Now or Your Favourite Songs of All Time

I've always liked ELO, I bought a few albums of theirs back in the seventies. I've recorded several of their much more recent concerts, off the TV.
I'm of the opinion, they improved with age. Better orchestrations and the addition of some more professional musicians helped.

Here's an example.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?...

So in the last fifteen minutes, whilst I've been watching football on the TV, I ripped a dozen tracks from these concerts to mp3s from YouTube. I've an adblocker so their adverts don't get included.
I'll make up another iTunes playlist including these and substitute them for others, in one of these in our front room.

 

The single for John Martyn's "Lonely Love" I bought on eBay for £4.99 for one of my jukeboxes has arrived.
Well pleased with it, as it was "mint." I've got it on this album I bought in 1986, on the strength of hearing it on the radio.



The problem with jukeboxes that play records, is that if you want to put a new one in, you have to take another out.
Now, you could scan down the title cards avoiding, "your favourites," or do it the way the operators did.
On this video I made of the complete operation of this jukebox, you'll see the way the number of plays for each record was recorded. It was all mechanical. As the record hits the turntable, a lever turns the little digital counter at the back of the mechanism. This records the total number of plays. In front of the turntable is big wheel with as many notched levers as there are records. The wheel is synchronised and turns at the same rate as the record carousel, so the notched lever for every record gets advanced one notch for every play. The operator wouldn't bother counting notches, they'd choose the record that had got the least plays, its lever not coming very far out of the drum. Once he'd changed the record he would press the button in the middle of the wheel and all the levers would spring back inside the wheel, so setting to zero.

It's quite possible for what you believe is a "favourite" doesn't get as many plays as you think.
Jukeboxes were more about making money, not playing records. Most were rented by coffee bars and pubs in those days, as to buy one they cost as much as a small car.



So Roxy Music's "Dance Away" is now out and has joined other now less popular (with me) records in their rack.

A decade ago there was a documentary on John Martyn, in which he was interviewed at his home in Ireland. At the time he had a leg in plaster as he'd recently had a car accident driving home to his house one night. He hit a cow in the road!

 

I watched the excellent film "Where the Crawdads Sing" last night on Sky Cinema..

I'm not a fan of much contemporary pop music, but over the interminably long end credits, this song was played in its entirety. I don't know for certain if it was specifically written for the film. But it was most apt and I liked it.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?...

For the first time I heard something written and sung by Taylor Swift.

 

The Christmas song

 

California dreamin

 

Someone put a compilation of Andrea Motis' recordings on YouTube she made from the age of 12.
Hard to believe that she's now 28.




Something more recent

 

Olivia Newton John and Cliff Richard over the years.

 

I've known this recording since my early teenage years.
I've always admired Les Paul and liked this version of the tune.

I noticed a copy on eBay a week or so ago, so on a whim I bought it.
99p plus postage. It's near mint!



It's destined for one of my jukeboxes





Just have to print off the title strip I typed out on jukebox owners' free site and downloaded as a pdf.




Here's the record if you don't know it.




Job done! It's joined another nine "classics" with x 30 50/60s pop, 30 x 70/80s pop and 10 Doo-Wop.





Of course putting a new record in, requires taking one out first. In this case Louis Prima's Buona Sera has joined other out of favour singles in my "retro-record rack," in a cupboard in our front room.

 

Enya, i like to listen to her when i want something relaxing.

 

I've a couple of vinyl jukeboxes which I've had for over fifteen years.

The one in the link will be 55 years old this year and I doubt if there's many left in as good condition.

They both live in our summerhouse at the bottom of the garden.

The carousel holds fifty Motown, Soul and R&B classics of my choice.

A few years ago I heard this on the radio and I liked it as it is played in a retro style, enough for me to have ordered the single from America and it deserves to be in there,

I've been tidying up my YouTube channel tonight, removing a few videos I no longer want on there. There are 90 videos on there (none in which I either appear or even speak), so I realised it wasn't on there, though I did record it back then. So I've added it.