Coffee-Table Notes

Barry Ryan – Singer, musician, photographer Born October 24, 1948; died September 28, 2021   Barry Ryan, who has died aged 72, was a singer who topped the charts in several countries in 1968 with his single, Eloise. The song was a flamboyant baroque epic written by Ryan’s brother Paul, with whom he previously performed as a duo, and inspired in part by Richard Harris’ rendition of Jimmy Webb’s song, MacArthur Park.   Ryan’s recording of Eloise was produced by Bill Landis and arranged by Eurovision conductor Johnny Arthey, with musicians including future Led Zeppelin members Jimmy Page and John Paul Jones. The end result was a breathless melodramatic gallop awash with strings and horns that lasted over five minutes. As Ryan’s yearning voice gave way to a slowed down mid section, the song climaxed with a final frantic declaration of devotion.    Eloise was a glorious pop anomaly that found mass appeal through an audaciousness that went far beyond any idea of novelty. The effect was heigh

Richard H. Kirk – Electronic musician and composer Born March 21, 1956; died September 2021    Richard H. Kirk, who has died aged 65, was a pioneer of British electronic music. This was the case both as the only constant member of Cabaret Voltaire, the Sheffield sired group he formed in 1973 with Stephen Mallinder and Chris Watson, and with a plethora of solo and collaborative works. Kirk’s prolific output saw him record both under his own name and a role-call of more than forty aliases that included Sandoz, Electronic Eye and Sweet Exorcist.    Naming their group after the Zurich based Dadaist nightclub that opened in 1916, Kirk, Mallinder and Watson initially produced sonic collages that drew from the cut-up aesthetic of novelist William Burroughs. They fused primitive tape experiments and samples with psych garage, dub, funk and German kosmische influences.    With Kirk adding treated guitar, clarinet and saxophone to the electronic stew, the band’s early experiments were at times d

Action! Time! Vision!   It was fifty-one years and a little bit more ago today that Strategy: Get Arts opened its doors at Edinburgh College of Art with a splash. The latter came care of Klaus Rinke’s water installation hosing people down as they entered ECA’s main building during the exhibition’s three-week run during Edinburgh International Festival from late August to mid September 1970. Since then, the ripples of this now legendary conceptualist infiltration of ECA’s historically staid environs by 35  Düsseldorf based artists has arguably helped open up, not just its host city, but the entire world it turned upside down.    Just how much the palindromically named extravaganza left its mark is clear from Christian Weikop’s forensically researched new book, Strategy: Get Arts – 35 Artists Who Broke the Rules. The book was launched in August at the 2021 Edinburgh International Book Festival, at an event in ECA’s Sculpture Court. It was here and in the rooms around it that work by Jose

Melvin Van Peebles – Filmmaker, actor, composer, playwright, novelist   Born August 21, 1932; died September 21, 2021   Melvin Van Peebles, who has died aged 89, was a filmmaker, writer, and renaissance man, whose film, Sweet Sweetback’s Baadasssss Song (1971), gave voice to contemporary African American experience in a way that had been little seen previously. Despite industry resistance to it being made at all, Van Peebles wrote, directed, produced and starred in the film, as well as composing its soundtrack. His tenacity paid off, and after hustling it into cinemas, the film make around $14 million at the box office. It also kickstarted a wave of independent features made by and starring black talents who more often than not had been previously relegated to bit part status.    The so-called blaxploitation era briefly changed all that, with the films produced acquiring a cult status that influenced future generations of film-makers, from Spike Lee to Quentin Tarantino. Van Peebles re

Desmond Davis – film and television director   Born May 24, 1926; died July 3, 2021     Desmond Davis, who has died aged 95, was a British film director who became best known for Clash of the Titans (1981), the Greek mythology based fantasy adventure that was stop-motion animator Ray Harryhausen’s film. Davis was hired after directing a BBC Television Shakespeare production of Measure for Measure (1979), with the producers keen to have someone on board who could deal with classical actors such as Laurence Olivier and Maggie Smith, who were both in the cast.   Davis had come to the fore two decades earlier on the back of a new wave of British film-making that came to be known as ‘kitchen-sink’ films. Davis worked as camera operator on a Taste of Honey (1961) and The Loneliness of the Long Distance Runner (1962), both directed by Tony Richardson. It was Richardson who gave Davis the chance to direct his own films, which began with Girl with Green Eyes (1964). The film was produced by Ric

Alan Lancaster – bass guitarist, singer, songwriter Born February 7, 1949; died September 26, 2021    Alan Lancaster, who has died aged 72 following complications from Multiple Sclerosis, was the original bass player with Status Quo, the band whose roots lay in groups formed with guitarist and vocalist Francis Rossi while a schoolboy. As they developed their sound away from voguish psychedelia towards the no-nonsense three-chord boogie, a stream of hits followed their breakout single, Paper Plane (1972), taken from the fourth Status Quo album, Piledriver (1972). Others included Caroline (1973), Down Down (1974), and a cover of John Fogerty’s song, Rockin’ All Over the World (1977).    Along with drummer John Coghlan, Lancaster provided the steady but insistent pulse behind Rossi and guitarist Rick Parfitt’s at times manic but always radio friendly headbangers. As a writer, Lancaster penned Don’t Think it Matters (1974) and Lonely Man (1974), and sang lead vocal on other co-writes, incl

Roger Michell – Film, television and theatre director   Born June 5, 1956; died September 22, 2021   Roger Michell, who has died aged 65, was a film, television and theatre director, best known to many for Notting Hill (1999). The Richard Curtis scripted rom-com brought Hugh Grant with Julia Roberts together in a frothy yarn about a bookshop owner and an actress finding true love. The film tapped into its era’s very British sense of optimism, and was a hit, winning a BAFTA, and becoming the biggest ever box office success for a British film.   This was one of many highlights for Michell, whose work on stage and screen was marked with warmth, intelligence and starry ensemble casts. This was as evident in his early stage work as it was in Nothing Like a Dame (2018), a documentary that brought together Eileen Atkins, Judi Dench, Joan Plowright and Maggie Smith to talk about their lives and careers.   The film reflected Michell’s own theatrical roots, and it was only after a regime change