SIMPLE MINDS

Simple Minds began as a derivative, Magazine and early Roxy Music-influenced introspective post-punk group. A few years later they were a massive, somewhat pretentious stadium-rock band. 

Their progression was a bit like U2's from a few years later, although their descent was as rapid as their ascent, something U2 didn't experience. Rather like Roxy Music, Fleetwood Mac and Santana, Simple Minds were a group whose eventual hordes of arm-waving fans who crowded out huge US stadiums had literally no idea about their early albums or their initial incarnation. As I said, a strange band, and one I never really "got", I have to be completely honest. 

Click on the images to read the reviews.

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Joni Mitchell: For The Roses - 1972

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Simple Minds: Street Fighting Years - 1989

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MARY CHAPIN CARPENTER

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I have written extensively about Mary Chapin Carpenter in my various reviews of her albums, so at the risk of repeating myself I will briefly say that I admire her work immensely.  I consider her to be a singer-songwriter of the highest quality, one of the very best. She is wise, clever, sensitive, expressive, emotive and one thing I really like about her is she grows old with me, the two of us having been born in the same year, 1958. The feelings and emotions she expresses in each album are “age appropriate”.  Click on the images to read the reviews.
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UB40: Labour Of Love II - 1989

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Don Henley: The End Of The Innocence - 1989

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