Enjoy Life

Great Christmas Music Ideas

Simon Evans with some great musical Christmas gift ideas

We Are Normal But We Are Still Barking

Bonzo Dog Doo-Dah Band (Madfish)

In the making for seven years, this is the definitive retrospective of the great and utterly unique Bonzos, a hybrid of pastiche, rock, surrealism, music hall, pop and peculiarly English madness that could only have emerged amidst the no-holds-barred cultural ferment of the Sixties.

Clocking in at a whopping 20 discs (17 CDs, three DVDs), this box set features remastered versions of all the band’s original albums, complete with outtakes, live recordings and BBC sessions. And that’s not all, the set includes short films, vintage footage and films of concerts in Europe and the USA. It also includes a hardcover coffee table book featuring an essay by esteemed music journalist and Bonzos fan Chris Welch.

A collaboration between all the Bonzos and the late Neil Innes (who gave the box set its title before he passed away in 2019) it’s a real labour of love that has had to overcome numerous legal hurdles before seeing the light of day. No hardcore Bonzos fan should be without it.

Gryphon Lve: A Sonic Tonic

Gryphon (Talking Elephant)

There has never been a band quite like Gryphon either, and in 1974 they became the only artist or group ever to have featured on all four BBC radio stations in the same week. The reason was the band’s effortless eclecticism, a musical palate that embraced folk, early music, pop and progressive rock, featuring such distinctly uncool instruments as the krumhorn and bassoon.

The group split up in the late Seventies, but was revived in 2007 and has, to date, released two more studio albums, which perfectly capture the mixture of genre-bending musical virtuosity and fun that made their early albums, Gryphon, Midnight Mushrumps and Red Queen to Gryphon Three, so beguiling.

Although no tracks from Midnight Mushrumps, for me the group’s best album, feature on this double CD, which faithfully captures the set list from last year’s 50th anniversary tour, there’s still plenty to enjoy, with early tracks Kemp’s Jig, The Unquiet Grave and The Red Queen Muddle nestling easily alongside more recent compositions. There’s never a dull moment, and if you get the chance it’s well worth catching them live.

Songbook

Gilbert O’Sullivan (BMG)

This album features stripped back versions of 12 songs from Gilbert’s illustrious career, which peaked in the early Seventies with his astonishing run of whimsical hits that included Nothing Rhymed, Alone Again (Naturally), No Matter How I Try and Clair. Nothing Rhymed and Alone Again (Naturally) both feature here, along with two of his most memorable early songs, We Will and Happiness Is You and Me as well as the more recent Blue Anchor Bay from Gilbert’s excellent 2022 album Driven. Recorded over two days, with just Gilbert on piano and his long-time guitarist Bill Shanley, the sparse settings suit the songs well, particularly the early ones, underlining the gentle melancholy sometimes obscured by the original somewhat dated arrangements.

 A Live Transmission

Home Service (Talking Elephant)

Home Service have a certain kinship with Gryphon – guitarist Graeme Taylor was a founder member and is still part of the band, and two members of the current Gryphon line-up appear on this excellent live recording.

Always one of the most important, if too easily overlooked, bands to emerge from the Seventies folk-rock explosion, Home Service was originally founded by former members of Ashley Hutchings’ Albion Band, and indeed Snow Falls, featured here, was originally part of the 1979 National Theatre production of Larks Rise to Candleford which had music supplied by the Albions. Its writer, John Tams, is no longer part of Home Service but his place has been taken by the esteemed singer and guitarist Bob Fox, whose songs of working-class life in his native North-East bring an important dimension to a band that, on the evidence of this album, a mixture of traditional tunes, folk songs and contemporary compositions, bulked out by the powerful Home Service big band sound, just seems to get better with age.

8314 Boxed

Ian Anderson (Madfish)

For most of its long career Jethro Tull has, for all intents and purposes, been Ian Anderson, and vice versa. Band members may have come and gone, some staying for longer than others, but there was no doubt that their flautist front-man was the creative engine room of Tull.

For that reason, the line has sometimes been blurred between Anderson’s occasional solo ventures and those of the parent group. Tull’s 1980 album A, for instance, started out as an Ian Anderson solo album, while his first solo album, the 1985 Walk Into Light was, perversely, one of his more collaborative efforts, with then-current Tull keyboard player Peter-John Vettesse sharing co-composition credits on several songs.

Walk Into Light is one of ten solo albums collected in this vinyl box set and, collectively, they display the wide range of Anderson’s work, from the instrumental Twelve Dances of God to the more folk-tinged The Secret Language of Birds. Lines between Anderson’s solo work and Jethro Tull blur again with the 2003 Rupi’s Dance, which was more characteristic of Jethro Tull than the rather charming Christmas album the band put out that year. Similarly, Thick As A Brick 2 and Homo Erraticus were follow-ups to Jethro Tull’s early Seventies Number One album Thick As A Brick.

In typical Madfish style it’s all beautifully presented, and includes a bonus album of live tracks spanning the years 1995 to 2007. Tull – and Anderson – fans will be in seventh heaven.

Mind Games Ultimate Collection

John Lennon (Beatles Solo)

John Lennon’s 1973 album Mind Games is not one of the more essential items in the ex-Beatle’s catalogue, and no amount of ‘ultimate’ collections or deluxe box sets will change that. It is chiefly of note for marking the beginning of Lennon’s mid-Seventies midlife crisis when, separated from Yoko, he would drift into alcoholism and drug dependency before pulling himself back from the brink with the half decent Walls and Bridges. Not that there isn’t much of interest in the two-CD version of this reissue, with one disc taken up with a vibrant new mix of the album overseen, as is the whole project, by John’s son Sean, and a second disc that comprises an ‘alternative’ version of the album sewn together with various out-takes that succeed in shedding new light on the original LP, especially its most notable songs, namely the title track, One Day At A Time and Out of the Blue.

For the full immersive experience there’s a deluxe box set that features 72 different versions of each track, surely more than enough for even the most committed Lennon fan to feast on.

 Music from the Documentary

The Beach Boys (Capitol)

The recent Disneyplus documentary may paint a rather partial picture of the anguished history of the Beach Boys, but this soundtrack album provides a fascinating deep dive into some of their most ground-breaking music, with demos, live versions and out-takes. Opening with a charming a cappella version of Don’t Go Near The Water, it includes hits like Fun, Fun, Fun, California Girls, God Only Knows and Good Vibrations as well as the less celebrated A Day In The Life of a Tree and You’re Welcome, here featured in its Smile version. Also included as a bonus track is Baby Blue Bathing Suit, a Beach Boys-inspired recording performed by Stephen Sanchez. 

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