Pattie Boyd. An amazing woman. One person. Two husbands. Three songs. The woman about whom three of the world’s greatest rock love songs were written. Something. Wonderful Tonight. Layla.
She’s taken some great photographs over the years; I was lucky enough to pick up a fine framed set of large prints some years ago, taken when they were all in India. [Incidentally, if you’re in or near San Francisco, you can take a look at some of them at the San Francisco Art Exchange. She has an exhibition there, titled Like a Rainbow, running till the end of March. You can buy limited-edition prints there as well].
Hanging out with the Beatles, with George, with Eric; travelling to India with them in the midst of the great Maharishi movement, I’m tempted to think that Pattie would have seen everything, that nothing would surprise her.
Except for this.
Yup. Layla. In Sanskrit. Why ever not?
While on the subject of amazing women in the world of music, here’s one more.
Jayashree Singh.
Here’s what someone in Rolling Stone said a few days ago.
And here’s coverage of the debut album Skinny Alley released last year.
Here’s a sample of the title track.
I’m biased. She’s my cousin. The drummer, who’s incredible, is my nephew. And I still miss Gyan Singh, her husband, his father, who died way before his time a few years ago.
This is what I wrote then about Gyan.
Spending time with him, spending time with Jayashree, chatting with them, listening to them play music as if their lives depended on it, being a pretend-roadie as they toured the deep and dark recesses of Calcutta and Shahgang and Diamond Harbour in the 70s, those were important times for me. They helped make me me. Mark the music.
The man that hath no music in himself,
Nor is not moved with concord of sweet sounds,
Is fit for treasons, stratagems, and spoils;
The motions of his spirit are dull as night,
And his affections dark as Erebus.
Let no such man be trusted.
Mark the music.”