British summer (festival season edition - if only) - it hasn’t stopped raining for many days…
There is a NASCAR race at Bristol Motor Speedway this evening (13 miles from my house), the temp is suppose to top out at 94, masks are required to attend the event. Sounds like a lovely time for the spectators!!!
Oof that will be harsh!
for anyone who is interested , the Green Note folk venue (in that london, i am told) are doing another of the regular wednesday and friday night live stream gigs, donations accepted (these musicians have had zero support through the lockdown and beyond).
just seen Gilmore and Roberts do “The Stealing Arm” - a song and album track i posted a few days ago. most excellent 
and still streaming.
edit - it’s in youtube, live and for a week afterwards,
http://www.youtube.com/greennotemusic
make a donation if you can.
i am not affiliated in any way (sorry, admins, but these are genuinely skint and really excellent musicians).
On his penultimate tour was he confined to a wheelchair.?
JM’s final tour: he had had one leg amputated and was confined to a wheelchair, the gig was bloody awful !! JM was ‘morbidly obese’, far too big to sit comfortably in a wheelchair - with his guitar side on, almost 90 degrees to his right hand side… Impossible situation to play any instrument, …his guitar was waaay out of tune - which meant it was nigh on impossible for the band to follow him. Obviously - his singing was also out of whack along with his guitar… He kept forgetting the lyrics, stopped mid-song, then restarting again at the beginning of the song. It was a shambles. Total wreck of a performance. It was mightily embarrassing for all involved, especially his band !! Nightmare gig.
Saying that, over the years starting way back in 1973 - I have been enthralled at his solo concerts, also concerts with Danny Thompson, and two concerts with Steve Winwood in attendance… Sadly he just didn’t know when to call a halt.
that’s grim. liverpool phil was apparently a little better but not much, i’m just glad i didn’t go.
the tour i saw, no he was the walking wounded - someone gave him an arm to lean on and walked him on stage. he was big, guitar at an odd angle, but did play and sing well, just a bit, well blurred is how i described it at the time.
no stopping songs though and i don’t recall any forgotten lyrics. i shall work out what year it was, but a couple of years before his last tour.
there were many women swooning in their seats at him so he still “had it” then.
i’m guessing he didn’t have anything else he could do, and just carried on to do a tour post amputation as that’s what he did. when i look at pics and film of him early 70s it is just such a decline.
“don’t do drugs, kids” (i know it was as much alcohol as anything else). a deeply complex and troubled person 
Edit - the “local” gig on that last tour may have been the Lowry in Salford in 2008, and I saw him at the Phil in 2007 (I recall him being “walked” on stage, but that was post-amputation I believe, so that doesn’t quite stack up).
I shall investigate further, because it’s bugging me now 
