This week, as has taken to doing this year, Jim is following his pattern of marking the first Song Lyric Sunday of the month by inviting us to play a song written or performed by someone who was born in the month of May. His post Greek Goddess Maia tells all.

I have found a website that details births on a day by day basis, and having consulted it for this month I find that I am rather spoiled for choice. Choosing just one from among so many is almost impossible, but two did rather stand out for me, as they are a kind of matching pair, so I thought I’d play one by each of them. And just for good measure I’m throwing in a bonus from somewhere wide of left field.

My opening song for today is by way of tribute to the recently departed:

And in keeping wth the spirit of SLS you can find the lyrics at genius.com.

Hole In My Shoe was the second single by Traffic, released in August 1967, peaking at #2 in the UK and #4 in Canada, though it didn’t make the US charts. The song was written by the band’s guitarist, Dave Mason, who was born on 10 May 1946 and passed away on 19 April at the age of 79 – hence this being played in tribute. Dave took lead vocal on the song, which the rest of the band hated, as it didn’t fit their idea of what their music was about. In a much later interview Steve Winwood is quoted as saying “We all (Winwood, Jim Capaldi and Chris Wood) tended to write together, but Mason would come in with a complete song that he was going to sing and tell us all what he expected us to play. No discussion, like we were his backing group.” It is probably no real surprise that Dave Mason didn’t spend long in the band, is it! The spoken word part is by Francine Heimann, the stepdaughter of Island Records’ owner Chris Blackwell – nepotism in practice, it would appear. I bought the single at the time, and lent it to a friend – it took a lot of time to get it back from him!

By one of those happy coincidences, Steve Winwood is also a May child, born on 12 May 1948. I couldn’t resist the opportunity to leap on that and play one of his songs too, but which one? I am a long time fan of Steve’s solo career and have all of his albums from the days when we actually had to buy physical copies of our music. After much deliberation, I have settled on this one:

And it’s genius.com again for the lyrics.

Steve released While You See A Chance in December 1980 as the lead single from his second album, Arc of A Diver, which came out later that month. It was co-written by him with the American songwriter Will Jennings, who has written for many artists and has many well known songs to his name, including seven more singles with Steve, two of which made #1 in the US. While You See A Chance peaked at #7 in the US and #3 in Canada, though it only made #45 in the UK, which always struck me as odd – it is a brilliant song. The album fared even better, reaching #1 in Canada, #3 in the US (selling more than 1m copies) and #13 in the UK – amongst which was my purchase. I have happy memories of one of my early jobs in marketing, which required several photoshoots in a small studio which had a great stereo system and an amazing record collection, amongst which was this album: it sounded so much better there than on the kit I had at home!

I said I was going for something wide of left field for a bonus this week, and I think this one fits the bill for that perfectly:

Atomic Rooster with Devil’s Answer, for which the lyrics are, as always, to be found at genius.com.

The birthday connection here is that Vincent Crane, who you can see with his extraordinary keyboard-playing style on this, was born on 21 May 1943 (but passed away in February 1989 at 45, following a deliberate overdose of painkillers brought on by mental health problems he had suffered since 1968). Devil’s Answer was written by Atomic Rooster’s guitarist, John Du Cann, who takes lead vocal, and was released as a single in July 1971, peaking at #4 in the UK Singles chart. It was only ever on compilation albums, though its release just ahead of the band’s third album, In Hearing Of Atomic Rooster, helped the album reach #18 in the UK. It also charted at #45 in Canada and #167 in the US. Devil’s Answer wasn’t a hit anywhere else, and I always felt it deserved better.

Vincent and the drummer, Carl Palmer, had been in the Crazy World of Arthur Brown (remember Fire?) until that band split in 1969, and formed Atomic Rooster as their next venture. This was also a fairly short-lived episode, in its first incarnation, and Carl Palmer went on to bigger things with two guys named Emerson and Lake – you may have heard of them. Vincent collaborated with other musicians on a number of albums, including Rory Gallagher, Arthur Brown, Peter Green, and Dexys Midnight Runners. In 1983, he was part of a one-off blues outfit, Katmandu, with Ray Dorset (of Mungo Jerry), Len Surtees, and Peter Green, who recorded an album: A Case for the Blues.

That’s it for today – a bit of a mixture, I think. Thanks as always to Jim for hosting the show, and I’ll see you again for Tuesday Tunes, which has a new theme this week. Take care 😊