July 27, 2021:
I love Rod Stewart's Mercury albums.
That beautiful texture. The mix of acoustic and electric instruments. Mandolin, Ronnie Wood, 12-string, pedal steel. Lovely.
Where the concept is so brilliant. In that historical context when "country" was the American byword, this is British country. Instead of trucks and dogs and bar fights there's the pastoral feel of village life, where the atmosphere feels old, like the warm brick fireplace of a seventeenth century pub.
For me, forever Christmas. 1973 or '74, my mother gifted me an enormous pile of new vinyl. Me at 3am in an uncomfortable green armchair, through cheap Sears earphones, loud but quiet enough to let her sleep, on the other side of a very thin wall, for work in the morning. So that these beautiful, often wistful records have something to do with her as well.