In Praise of The Old Polo Neck
It's Really All About Laura Nyro...
A much maligned garment, sneered at by the same ‘experts’ who turn their noses up at cord trousers and Tattersall shirts. I’m not sure what it was about my generation, or at least, some of those I knocked about with. Much like The Artful Dodger and his pals, we tended to dress far older than we were. During the mid-seventies, a small selection of teenagers were jumping around the West End of London, dressed in Burberry Macs and frog pocket golfing slacks. I’ve no doubt we looked ridiculous, but you know, we thought we were the bees’ knees. Yes, I am aware that I’ve covered this phenomenon previously, but at least in this instance, there’s a point to it. Which is, those items are now age-appropriate. Not those specific ones, as I’ve always had an illogical dislike of Burberry Macs. At least, that is, the trench coat variety… What the fuck was he doing?
… Had it come to this, writing about polo-neck jumpers? Who cared? He liked them well enough and all that, who didn’t? All he wanted to write was the sequel to Language of Nods. He had the story, and he’d reintroduced Jimmy to his subscribers a couple of times recently. They’d responded positively enough, but not as positively as to say a thing on brogues. He enjoyed The Wonder of Me, but if he wanted to write about anything properly, he would have to cut the posts down to one a week. People would probably be relieved. It was all getting a bit much, what with the Flarz an’ all…
They all knew about fucking polo-neck jumpers; it was possible, even likely, that a few might be oblivious to the music of the wonderous Laura Nyro? Fuck it, he’d do a post on Laura. He knew fuck all about her other than that she was now deceased (RIP). He’d got into the habit of that RIP thing from his time ‘On the Board’. That, for the uninitiated, was a football thugs board he’d inadvertently spent time on a few years earlier. If you’re wondering how anyone could ‘inadvertently’ wind up on a closed thug forum, then please, read the post featuring a photo of Leikeli 47, entitled ‘The Board’…
Oh, yeah, Laura Nyro… He couldn’t even remember how he’d come across her, but for a while there, Ms Nyro was all he’d be listening to. She wrote hit songs for an array of artists, but for reasons he couldn’t work out, Laura couldn’t buy a hit for herself. The one below, ‘Stoned Soul Picnic’, was a hit for The Fifth Dimension but came to your narrator’s attention via ‘The Staple Singers’. For reasons he couldn’t begin to fathom, it appeared to him that one of the greatest musical artists of the twentieth century had been written out of history. It seemed that this shit isn’t restricted to black artists.
Your blogger is not alone in his adoration, as Miles Davis, who wasn’t overly keen on anyone, dug Laura and, in particular, her seminal 1969 album ‘New York Tendaberry’.
If you’re unfamiliar with Laura, I feel she’s worth checking out…
Get me my cap, sister, get me my earrings too…
If nothing appears on Monday, I’m just plumb out of ideas… I’ve trained eight days on the bounce, and it’s taken its toll. I am elderly after all…