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   CLUB SANDWICH 59

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ROBBIE'S TWENTY

...well, actually, he's 34, but there's the music of generations crammed into that wise guitarist's head. In conversation with Mark Lewisohn, Robbie McIntosh reels off 20 favourites from his collection.

            "I'm not really a collector, I just know what I like," insists Robbie, about to outline the which, whys and wherefores of his favourite music. "I suppose I've only got about a thousand albums..."
            The McIntosh LP collection is sorted alphabetically by artist, and it's regularly plundered for cassettes, compiled for himself and for other people's pleasure. And now the collection's being supplemented by an fast-increasing cache of compact discs. "Getting a CD player was like getting my first stereo," laughs Robbie. "I went straight out and got Sgt Pepper, reading the new liner notes and listening to it all over again."
            Enthusiastically responding to our request for his Top 20, yet almost in pain over the tracks that only just fail to make the cut, here's Robbie list - in alphabetical not merit order. (That would be asking the impossible.) Club Sandwich 59

The Beach Boys - 'Darlin'
            This has always been a favourite of mine. It's superb - what else can you say? Funnily enough, the album that it's on, Wild Honey, is not that typical - all stripped down and R&B. 'Break Away' from the album 20/20 is great too.

The Beatles - 'Fixing A Hole'
            'Fixing A Hole' was always one of my favourites - Paul's bass on this track is great. I was ten when Sgt Pepper came out but I was totally into the Beatles. The first album I got was A Hard Day's Night, when I was seven. I've always thought that George is a great guitarist; his Beatles stuff was inspired.
            My eldest sister went to see the Beatles at Wimbledon Palais in December 1963, at their fan club meeting. They stood behind a bar and all the girls filed along, shaking their hands. My sister was one of them, she was about 15 then, and she brought me back a plastic guitar-shaped badge with a picture of George on it. Then when we played at Wembley on the World Tour I took her along and she talked to Paul for 15/20 minutes. That was particularly satisfying for me, because it had gone full circle. She bought me the plastic guitar, I took her to meet Paul.

Chuck Berry - 'Let It Rock'
            It's just such a great song. Chuck wrote reams and reams of lyrics and they just trip off the tongue, they're so rhythmic. Though there's an art to writing lyrics he could actually write anything because his phrasing was superb. There's also a rare Berry track called 'It Wasn't Me' that's worth looking out for - again, fantastic lyrics.

The Bonzo Dog Band -The Doughnut In Granny's Greenhouse
            I could choose anything from this album. It's amazing the number of younger people I know who've never heard the Bonzos. I've got all their stuff and I'm absolutely bonkers about them. It's all so brilliantly funny - I still listen to their records and wish that I'd written them.

Eddie Cochran -'C'mon Everybody'
            I love all of his singles - 'Twenty Flight Rock', 'Something Else', 'Summertime Blues', 'Hallelujah I Love Her So', 'Cut Across Shorty', but 'C'mon Everybody' is just the best. He played all the instruments except for the bass, he even played the drums. I think that had he not died Cochran might have even surpassed Presley. He was a great singer, great looking and a really good guitar player for his age - he was only 21 when he died.

Ry Cooder - 'FDR In Trinidad'
            This is about Franklin D Roosevelt's visit to Trinidad and must have been written around that time. It's on Cooder's Into The Purple Valley. He has such an amazing knowledge of all types of American music but he's not like a copyist, he just picks up the attitudes and plays what's right for the song. I like almost everything he does, he's such a hero.

Bob Dylan - 'Ring Them Bells'
            This is from Bob Dylan's recent Oh Mercy album. I've always liked Dylan - who hasn't? 'Ring Them Bells' has great lyrics and he plays some lovely piano on it, brilliant.

Jimi Hendrix- 'Bleeding Heart'
            Everybody associates Jimi with rock, with psychedelia, with setting fire to his guitar, but he was such a great blues player too. There's an album recorded at the Royal Albert Hall in February 1969, when he made the Experience film, and it has a live version of 'Bleeding Heart' quite different from the War Heroes studio version. Quite phenomenal blues playing, such a perfect touch. Just superb.

Albert King - Live Wire/Blues Power
            I just went out and got this again on CD but I don't know which track to pick -it's Albert King's definitive album and really superb, he gets such a lovely tone from his Flying V. He had a very young guitarist called Son Seals who was actually playing drums and I met and played with him when I was last in Chicago.

Freddie King - 'I'm Ready'
            It's a Muddy Waters song, from King's album Texas Cannonball, and it's got probably the most aggressive guitar solo that I've ever heard, it's absolutely fantastic and so intense. He got a lot of his style from Lightnin' Hopkins and he used a Gibson 345 through a Fender amp with a metal finger-pick On his index finger and another metal pick on his thumb.

Little Feat - 'Long Distance Love'
            This is on The Last Record Album - I just love this, it's so concise and moving. Lowell George was just so great; I was mortified when he died, even though we all knew it was coming. And I don't think Little Feat were ever the same again because although they were all great musicians they lacked Lowell's humour.

Curtis Mayfield - 'So In Love'
            This is from his 1975 Civil Rights album There's No Place Like America Today, which met with great Press disapproval at the time. 'So In Love' has some of the nicest sounding brass I've ever heard on a record, a lovely arrangement, absolutely beautiful.

Joni Mitchell - 'Help Me'
            I really love Joni, and so does my wife. She's retained so much credibility and moved through all these different styles, always experimenting and never looking stupid. She really is one of the goddesses. 'Help Me', off Court And Spark, is wonderful, with Tom Scott and the LA Express supplying the backing.

Randy Newman - 'Marie'
            This is from Good Old Boys. A lot of people don't like him, they think he's too serious because he always sings in the first-person and therefore might mean some of the outrageous things he's saying. But I think that he's great - his songs are wonderful and he does his own string arrangements too.