My pub juke box
Roger Protz,
MA columnist and Good Beer Guide editor, chooses his favourite tracks
Music has always been an inspiration. My parents, with me in tow, would go "up West" from the East End to see all the great post-war musicals. I graduated to both modern jazz and classical music. I trained on alto sax but my musical career was ended abruptly by two years of national service. Deeply embarrassed by my first buy — but you have to start somewhere...
1. SINGIN' THE BLUES
Tommy Steele
Misplaced loyalty: my parents came from Bermondsey and so did Tommy. Could have been worse: Max Bygraves also hails from Bermondsey: I'm a Pink Toothbrush...
2. SCRAPPLE FROM THE APPLE
Charlie Parker
The great jazz revolutionary who transformed the genre in the 1940s with be-bop: daring chord changes, surging rhythms and minor key variations. He often based his numbers on pop songs — Scrapple is based on the chords of How High the Moon.
3. TWIST AND SHOUT
The Beatles
One of the Fab Four's earliest hits. I visited the Cellar Club in
St Petersburg a few years ago, based, of course, on Liverpool's Cavern. Russian Beatles' tribute groups every night. When I requested Twist and Shout, they said they didn't know it. What sort of tribute group is that?
4. YEAH, YEAH
Georgie Fame
That rarity — a genuine British jazz singer, who's good enough to perform with Count Basie at London's Royal Festival Hall. This song was a surprise hit in the 1960s. Fame is still around, doing gigs, but he deserves much greater recognition. Jools Holland to the rescue?
5. THE LADY IS A TRAMP
Frank Sinatra
The greatest swing singer of the 20th century — such style, timing and phrasing. The best version of this song is from the film Pal Joey. Sinatra literally snarls his way through it while staring at Rita Hayworth, who plays a rich, arrogant San Francisco socialite.
6. MACK THE KNIFE
Ella Fitzgerald
Ella was a true jazz great who reached out to a wider audience that responded with love as well as respect. This pulsating song comes from the amazing Threepenny Opera, composed by Bertold Brecht and Kurt Weill.
7. PORGY AND BESS
Miles Davis
I'm happy to include any track from this stunning album, a brilliant fusion of jazz and "serious" music. I hate the Berlin Wall between the genres: by any definition, Miles, along with the likes of the Duke, Parker and Dizzy, were great musicians.
8. I'M FOREVER BLOWING BUBBLES
West Ham United fans
Such a mournful song — "fortunes always hiding" — but it's our anthem. And we did win the World Cup in 1966.
9. WE GOTTA GET OUTta THIS PLACE
The Animals
We've all been to that pub — raw rock by one of the better Brit groups of the 1960s. Composed by Kurt Weill (see above), who escaped the Nazis and wrote opera and pop songs in the US.
10. ODE TO JOY
Beethoven
From his Ninth Choral Symphony, the greatest piece of music ever written. Always get that shiver down the spine as the Ode emerges from the final movement.
