Meeting their Waterloo...
QUESTION The success of Fleetwood Mac’s Rumours album is often credited to the tensions caused by marital strife within the group. What other albums have benefited from such discord?
A GOOD example is Richard and Linda Thompson’s Shoot Out The Lights.
Richard is a founding member of Fairport Convention, a virtuoso guitarist and a wonderfully caustic songwriter. His wife, Linda, has one of the great folk voices. It was a match made in heaven, but despite producing critically acclaimed albums, commercial success eluded them.
Without a record contract and with their relationship collapsing, they released their final album in 1982 on Hannibal, an independent label.
Shoot Out The Lights is packed with allegorical songs about their marriage, such as Don’t Renege On Our Love, Walking On A Wire and Wall Of Death.
The album was a hit, especially in the U.S., where they toured to support it while not talking to each other. Those who saw these scintillating concerts recalled how you could cut the tension with a knife as every vitriolic word hit home.
After this stormy tour, the Thompsons separated personally and professionally.
Upbeat Swedish pop quartet Abba’s final album The Visitors is a downbeat classic, full of wistful sorrow. This followed the decision of Benny Andersson and Anni-Frid Lyngstad to divorce, a path already taken by Bjorn Ulvaeus and Agnetha Faltskog.
Songs such as the title track, The Day Before You Came, When All Is Said And Done, Slipping Through My Fingers and One Of Us showcased a refreshingly different side of Abba.
Nick Thomas, Luton, Beds. THOUGH Let It Be was released later, Abbey Road is the last Beatles album. There were deep divisions over artistic direction and money. The breakdown of band relations is captured in tracks such as the fragmented You Never Give Me Your Money, the drag of emotional Beatles-baggage in Carry That Weight and the obvious farewell finale The End.
Another candidate is the Sex Pistols. Never Mind The B******s was the perfect debut and break-up album in a single package. This was a band pretty much in a state of collapse throughout their brief, crass and noisy quasi-career.
Syd Mayhew, Stone, Staffs.
QUESTION Sarah Blizzard reads the weather for BBC North West. Does any other TV presenter do a job that is synonymous with their name?
NAMES such as these are known as aptronyms. Psychologist Karl Jung noted the phenomenon in his 1952 book, Synchronicity, saying there was a ‘ sometimes quite grotesque coincidence between a man’s name and his peculiarities’.
An exact equivalent to Ms Blizzard is WABC-TV (New York) weather girl Amy Freeze. Abi Titmuss, a former nurse and roving reporter on Richard And Judy, became a glamour model and presenter on adult channel Television X. Samantha Bond was Miss Moneypenny in four Bond films.
Sport is particularly well covered. Among others, there’s champion sprinter Usain Bolt and Li Ping, a Chinese table tennis player. Bulgarian Vania Stambolova made headlines by stumbling over at the first hurdle in the first heat of the 400m hurdles at the 2012 Olympics.
More successful in the same event was the USSR’s Maria Stepanova who won gold in the 1986 European championships. Steve Rowbotham raced in the men’s quadruple scull at the 2012 Olympics. Martin Stamper is a taekwondo martial artist, who competed in 2012, and Nathan Leeper a former U.S. high jumper.
Peter Bowler was an English-born Australian cricketer who, ironically, was known as a great batsman, and Larry Speakes was a White House spokesman, under Ronald Reagan.
In finance, Bob Diamond was president and CEO of Barclays, and Rich Ricci is a former CEO of Barclays Capital, who was paid £44 million in 2010. Rick Wagoner was head of General Motors, and Patty Turner was the wife of McDonald’s CEO Fred Turner. Sheila McCrae, London SW20.
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