By force majeure another 1970s song. For Steve Harley has also left us.

I posted Cockney Rebel’s first single Sebastian here, their biggest hit Make Me Smile (Come Up and See Me) – a storming no. 1 – here, and a later cover of George Harrison’s song Here Comes the Sun here.

This song was the first of Cockney Rebel’s (and therefore Steve’s) songs I ever heard. A no. 5 in 1974.

Cockney Rebel: Judy Teen

Stephen Malcolm Ronald Nice (Steve Harley) 27/2/1951 – 17/3/2024. So it goes.

And this week Aston Barret, known as Aston “Family Man” Barrett, bassist with Bob Marley’s band the Wailers, and instrumental in popularising reggae, has died.

His bass playing is prominent on this famous track.

Bob Marley and the Wailers: No Woman, No Cry

Aston Francis Barrett: 22/11/1946 – 3/2/2024. So it goes.

Melanie Safka has also gone.

She first came to notice in the UK with her 1970 cover of the Rolling Stones song Ruby Tuesday, which I featured here.

Her biggest UK hit was Brand New Key, parodied by The Wurzels as The Combine Harvester.

I’ve chosen her second UK hit (no 39 in 1970) What Have They Done to My Song Ma (aka Look What They’ve Done to My Song Ma) partly for the verse in French but also since I always wanted to write a parody of it entitled Look What They’ve Done to My Team Ma. (By ‘team’ I meant the mighty Sons of the Rock.) I never got round to that of course.

Melanie: What Have They Done to My Song Ma

Melanie Anne Safka-Schekeryk (Melanie):  3/2/1947 – January 23/1/2024. So it goes.

Pedant’s corner:- Both of the song’s titles surely ought to have a comma after ‘Song’ and the ‘what’ one, a question mark at its end.

Yes it has taken me long enough to get round to this.

The song that announced Roxy Music and Brian Ferry to the world.

Curiously the dancers on the Top of the Pops floor look bored rather than anything.

Roxy Music: Virginia Plain

I saw in the Guardian last week that Bob Johnson of the folk-rock band Steeleye Span had died.

This track of theirs – the band’s first UK hit – seemed appropriate for the time of year; doubly so since it was Johnson who brought the song to the band. It was the first UK hit to be sung entirely in Latin and one of only a handful of a capella hits.

Steeleye Span: Gaudete

Robert (Bob) Johnson: 18/3/1944 – 15/12/2023. So it goes.

Fox’s last UK hit. Noosha Fox (Susan Traynor) certainly had a distinctive – if perhaps weak – voice.

Fox: S-S-Single Bed

Peter Gabriel’s first solo single. From 1977

Peter Gabriel: Solsbury Hill

The song that introduced Alice to the UK

And the sound of summer 1972.

Alice Cooper: School’s Out

And now Randy Meisner has left us.  He is of course best known as a founder member of US band The Eagles but had previously been in Poco whose Rose of Cimarron I featured here.

This is a live version of the Eagles song most associated with him.

The Eagles: Take It to the Limit

Randall Herman (Randy) Meisner March 8/3/1946 –26/7/2023. So it goes.

I Feel Free was the first Cream song I ever heard. I was immediately impressed. Like quite a few of Cream’s early songs its lyric was written by Pete Brown who died recently.

Cream: I Feel Free

I remember Brown more though for his perhaps unforgettably named band Pete Brown and Piblokto! who were responsible for one of the longest album titles in pop history, their first, Things May Come and Things May Go but the Art School Dance Goes on Forever  (though it wasn’t quite as long as this one.)

This is the B-side of Piblokto!’s second single.

Pete Brown and Piblokto!: Broken Magic

Peter Ronald (Pete) Brown: 25/12/1940 – 19/5/2023. So it goes.