Rip It Up co-founder and longterm editor Murray Cammick. Photo: Josh Hetherington
Rip It Up co-founder and longterm editor Murray Cammick. Photo: Josh Hetherington
Each week we invite music lovers to share the songs that have soundtracked their lives. This week it's Murray Cammick, longtime editor of iconic local music magazine Rip It Up, and celebrated photographer who's new exhibition, Queens St, opens next Friday.
Keep on Running – Spencer Davis Group
I lovedall these groups like Small Faces and stuff like that. But Steve Winwood's voice here is so amazing, despite the fact he was quite young at the time. This was number one in the UK but it was pretty big here too by memory. It's pre-Radio Hauraki so I would have had to have heard it on the NZBC. In those days you'd hear songs and really love them but you'd have no idea they were cover versions. You had no idea they essentially came from a different culture. You were indirectly discovering soul music or Jamaican music via these covers. I actually only found out this song was a cover version a few years ago when a friend told me, when we were talking on the phone.
This song has one of the best vocals in popular music. The style of singer Levi Stubbs is very emotional. They recorded him in a key he wasn't comfortable in. They'd just piss him off like that. But to some extent it brought an emotion into the song that is unparalled.
Motown usually liked to have one hit per album but Reach Out, the album this song is on, has about eight hits on it. It just accidentally had lots of great songs. Motown used to call their music, "The Sound of Young America". They were trying to make it appeal to whiteys like me. And this song has got a lot of those old Motown tricks in it, a lot of what you call Motown icing.
Reach Out was the first Soul music LP I ever purchased. I'm surrounded by records now. Obviously some of the records here are reggae and jazz and other things but I definitely have over 1000 soul albums now, 2000 probably. And it started here.
Champagne And Wine - Otis Redding
I was an Otis Redding obsessive at school to the point of really being boring. I bought every one of his albums. I discovered him before he died but my favourite albums are the posthumous ones. This is one of his slower ones. I don't usually choose slower Otis Redding songs but this is my current favourite.
Lost in Music – Sister Sledge
I chose this song because it sums up my life. I think Chic's greatest songs went to Sister Sledge and this is one of the great Nile Rodgers/Bernard Edward songs. They're one of the greatest rhythm sections of all time, those two guys. There was also something really interesting about their image. They'd be in these designer suits playing onstage facing each other. There was something about that that was very cool. Even though they were up against the punk era.
Could You Be Loved – Bob Marley
I'm a big Marley fan and got into it with his live album in the 70s. The funny thing is when I was young I'd read about reggae in a magazine called Record Mirror and I'd pronounce it, "Ray-Guy". Once everybody knew about reggae and was pronouncing it right I sounded pretty stupid. But I'd never heard it said. I love so many Marley songs but I liked that he was trying to cross over and achieve a black American audience. This particular live performance is quite funky. A reggae purist wouldn't like it, but I'm not a reggae purist.
There's a lot of Shihad songs I like. I was tempted by Deb's Night Out but I didn't like it the last time I heard it on vinyl much. But I just love the Bluelight Disco EP with Wait & See. I thought those guys had a future in glam rock. I went through a hair rock stage and am embarrassed now about the David Lee Roth Just Like Paradise cassingle I played in my car. It was one the most overplayed cassingles in my trusty Barina. I must have lost my mind, briefly. But I have no regrets about releasing NZ rock music on the Wildside label.
Got To Keep On - The Chemical Brothers
Because I'm listening to a lot of old disco on YouTube they'll say, "you like this, try this". This was one that they threw in. Before that it was Jungle, which I got to from playing Chaka Khan's Like Sugar repeatedly. But this harks back to the T.K. Records sound. It's very much like Jimmy 'Bo' Horne's Let's Dance Across the Floor. Disco never dies. But I don't like anything else on the album, so I haven't bought it yet.
