(Richard Haslop. Pic
supplied)
Pieter Scholtz and friends invite patrons to come along and be entertained, engaged and enlightened at a special Mondays @ 6 evening with multitalented musician, music guru, raconteur, former president of the SA Society for Labour Law, blues and roots music aficionado, Richard Haslop. This will take place on July 1 at 18h00.
“In my listening life, and despite what I hear from just about everybody over the age of about 35, every year throws up fantastic music even if you sometimes need to look a little harder to find it,” says Richard Haslop. “But 1967 still seems special, probably because of the amount of not just fantastic, but seriously influential pop and rock music released that year.
It was the year of the Summer of Love in San Francisco, the world’s first major rock festival in Monterey, the introduction of soul music to the ‘Love Crowd’, the release of the Beatles’ ground-breaking Sgt Pepper’s album and the explosion of British blues, for a start.
“And then Jimi Hendrix, the Doors, the Velvet Underground, Pink Floyd and Leonard Cohen, all of whom still influence popular music in important ways, released their debut albums, while the first three managed to squeeze in a follow-up in the same year as well.
“Meanwhile Bob Dylan seemed for most of the year to have totally ignored it — while one of the few true pop geniuses, Beach Boy Brian Wilson, went bonkers and a couple of Rolling Stones were given jail terms that ultra-conservative British politician Sir Jacob Rees-Mogg’s father may have helped to commute.”
It was also the year that Haslop's father bought him Richard first guitar. “But I won’t be playing it, or any other. Instead I’ll be telling some of 1967’s hundreds of stories while playing music by the artists themselves.”
Richard Haslop, a practicing attorney with a focus on human rights, labour law, arbitration and industrial relations, is a multi-instrumentalist, music reviewer, radio personality and one of South Africa's leading experts on blues and roots music. He is a former president of the South African Society for Labour Law (SASLAW) and has acted as a judge in the Labour Court of South Africa on a number of occasions.
Instruments he can play: “Guitar (mainly slide guitar), dobro, Weissenborn, lap steel, mandolin, bouzouki, dulcimer, tin whistle, a bit of banjo and some other stringed stuff… I have a fiddle, a ngoni (from Mali) and an anandi (from India). I also have a piano that I’m unlikely ever to get to in any acceptable way.” (This from a Richard Haslop interview with Billy Suter.)
Haslop has
-written about music for national and international
publications for more than 30 years;
- presented a number of seriously eclectic music shows on
SAfm;
- lectured courses on the history of popular music at UKZN
Music Department;
- given talks, lectures and presentations at a number of
festivals and conferences in SA and overseas;
- played (those*) musical instruments, solo and in a variety
of aggregations (for more than 40 years).
When the donation box is passed around, the organisers
suggest a minimum of R50 per person.
“Weather permitting, we will be outdoors. Indoors if it
rains.
Bookings limited to diners in support of St Clements restaurant and staff. (They stay open specially for us.)
Be there in time to order before the performance, scheduled to start at 18h00. Please cancel if you book then can’t make it.
Table Bookings Essential: RSVP ST Clements 031 202 2511
St Clements is situated in Musgrave Road, Durban.
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