D is for all the D’s that didn’t make it

Thursday 20th September

Deacon Blue, Sandy Denny, Dexys, Dire Straits, Thomas Dolby, The Doors, Donovan, Nick Drake and Dusty amongst others.  Deacon Blue – another great 80’s band emerged from Scotland with a bunch of excellent songs and an edgy sound – best album by far was Fellow Hoodlums.  After that they seemed to fade from view.  Sandy Denny started in Fairport Convention, and before that the Strawbs and for a while a solo artist.  She had the most beautiful voice, clear and emotional and strong and gentle all on the same track.  She died from complications after a long history of drug abuse, another of rock’s victims – but she has recently had a renaissance and posthumously is probably more famous than when she was alive.  Dexys Midnight Runners burst on the scene in 1979 with Gino and had a number one with Come on Eileen.  The band was really a vehicle for Kevin Rowland’s voice and musical muse, which has wavered over the years with long gaps while he tried to get a band together or a record contract.  Dire Straits – another 80’s band who had a string of great singles and albums, the best of which was ‘Brothers in Arms’  – the lead guitarist and singer Mark Knopfler went solo and is still making very competent music.  Thomas Dolby had a couple of exciting singles and a handful of brilliant albums before he just seemed to stop making music altogether – a pity as he had a beautiful voice, and was obviously a genius.  The Doors were once almost as famous as the Beatles, before their lead singer Jim Morrison became another famous rock casualty in the early seventies, but he left behind some lovely music like ‘Riders on the storm’.  Donovan, was, well just Donovan – a very English elfish singer songwriter who emerged about the same time as and was rapidly eclipsed by Dylan – some sweet songs though like ‘Sunshine Superman’ and ‘Try and catch the wind.’   Nick Drake, another singer sadly no longer with us.  He made just three sad and haunting delicate albums which have sold consistently after his death but were completely ignored when he made them. He died in 1974, a suspected suicide.  And Dusty, possibly the greatest English vocal talent of the sixties and early seventies, she had a string of hit singles but never seemed comfortable with fame itself.  She drifted in and out of fashion before dying in 1996 of cancer – it hardly made an item on the news.

So, sadly, so many of my favourite D’s are either no longer with us or have stopped making music altogether.  I could also include , and who could forget Ian Dury, irreplaceable wit and great lyricist who is also sadly gone.  But they all pale into insignificance beside the greatest D of all – Bob Dylan.