//Gillett + McLaren, 1983.//

Year-ends and beginnings naturally bring a sense of loss, of time passed and experiences weighed.

For me, 2010 will always mark the deaths of two individuals of personal import and also of lasting significance to our culture: Charlie Gillett and Malcolm McLaren.

These apparently disparate individuals – Gillett 68 and McLaren 64 at their time of passing on, respectively, March 17 and April 8 – shared several characteristics, not least idiosyncratic and uncompromising viewpoints and an abiding interest in bringing vanguard music into the mainstream.

Charlie was among folk and popular music’s most prominent enthusiasts – though he never liked the phrase, it is his achievement that “world music” entered western lives – and, as art consultant Bernd Wurlitzer wrote in 2008: “Malcolm McLaren is and has been an artist in the purest sense of the word for his entire adult life.”

Read the rest of this entry »

Tags: Bernd Wurlitzer, Charlie Feathers, Charlie Gillett, Duck Rock, Elvis Costello, Flaco Jiminez, Geraint Watkins, Ian Dury, Jimi Hendrix, Johnnie Allan, Leadbelly, Les Chats Sauvages, Let It Rock, Malcolm McLaren, Nick Lowe, Peter Grant, Puccini, Ry Cooder, Sex Pistols, Syd Barrett, Velvet Underground, Wynonie Harris