Watty starts to worry slightly:

I'm not catching up at all here - I'll just have to move my birthday back...

27:

Nanci Griffith. This is really about Perth. Perth Library, to be precise. When I think of our time in Perth, I don't remember much music at all, for some reason - we bought our first CD player when we lived there, so there must have been a bit; and there are, as we shall see, memories associated with the vast amount of driving I did while I lived there, but Perth itself...

Perth Library had a small selection of recordings which you could borrow - pretty much all on cassette tape, and I would scour the collection for something new and interesting, and generally fail to find it. But when it did come up trumps, it was always with an absolute gem. I had heard Miz Griffith's version of 'From a Distance', a song which can make the teeth curl in the wrong hands - she carried it off beautifully, and I had wondered whether any more of her work would be worth investigation. Perth Library had a copy of 'One Fair Summer Evening', and I took it home, not really sure what to expect. Just the songs alone would be enough to make this a glorious collection, but it comes with Nanci's peerless storytelling. Every song tells a story, and every introduction comes with a little piece of Texas magic. I was hooked, and another whole avenue of music suddenly opened up to me. When I think of Nanci I remember seeing her at the Albert Hall - hers is very definitely a live experience - but when I think of Perth, I remember discovering Nanci Griffith.