As far back as I can remember I’ve had two passions in my life... music and football. I figure that I
better only tell you about one of them today. My first real, solid music memory as a little kid is of visiting my uncle and aunt who had recently
returned from a trip to Italy in 1967 with all their groovy new things from over there. One in particular
was the sole focus of my attention, a brand new ‘Penny Lane b/w Strawberry Fields’ picture sleeve
45. I played both sides and decided that Strawberry Fields was the most beautiful thing I had ever
heard; it also began my left-handed attraction to B-sides. In my teens I started buying records seriously and also began playing the drums... and eventually
formed a 3-piece. No one else wanted to sing so I took that on. Next, I began writing lyrics to go with
the guitarist’s riffs. When the riffs dried up, I picked up a guitar and came up with my own. Now, I’m
not saying I did any of this stuff really well, or had any lessons in how to do it... But I loved it and did it
all anyway... passionately. Basically, the next 20 years are kinda all blurred together... buying records; rehearsals; gigs; the dole;
recording; day jobs; designing our own record covers with Letraset, photocopies and glue stick and
putting them out; hearing my own record on the radio for the first time as I’m driving up the Newell
highway, everyone asleep in the back and me crazily waking everybody up; the weird feeling of hearing
the song... and it’s like... for the first time; DJ-ing here and there with my 1960s 45s; my band
playing on TV; having a hit; it all going horribly wrong, splitting up again, another day job, buying more
records, etcetera.... Along the way my taste in music got blacker and blacker but stayed rooted in that magical decade.
In the 1990s, record companies suddenly stopped putting out vinyl records and I had a short, mad,
foolish affair with the compact disc. I started doing fill-in ‘Soul’ shows on RRR for my mate James
Young during summers in the mid 90s. As with everything else in my life, I never learned how, I just
turned up and did it. I met Vince Peach in 1997 at one of his Soul nights and he asked me if I wanted to come in and
guest on his show ‘Soul Time’ on PB S, so I did... for the next 6 years.
I also got back into DJ-ing and in early 2000 started playing my R&B, Soul and Funk 45s at ‘Soul In
The Basement’ at The Cherry Bar. Eleven years later, I’m still there, turning up at 12.30am on a Friday
morning and playing through to 4am. In 2003, PB S asked me if I would be interested in doing my own show and, after submitting a demo,
my little baby ‘Soulgroove’66’ was born at 11am on Friday, May 9th, 2003 on 106.7FM.
If you’ve never heard the show, it’s now on Saturday afternoons at 3pm and each week I try to take
the listener on a little 20-ish year trip through black American music. I keep it fairly raw and ‘down
home’ from the rhythm and blues of the late 1950s to the funky soul of the early 1970s... all on 7”
45s, with the odd LP track thrown in if it’s one that isn’t on a 45 and I’m dying to play it.
Pierre Baroni. |
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