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Chris Jagger has announced he will release a brand new studio album Mixing Up The
Medicine on September 10 th through BMG. Recorded during lockdown with a host of musician friends and peers, the album is released on the same day as the publication of Jagger’s long awaited autobiography Talking To Myself, published by BMG. Recorded socially distanced in a studio near Jagger’s long standing musical wingman and pianist Charlie Hart’s Lewisham home, at Jagger’s farmhouse, and down the line to each other when lockdown restrictions were in force, Mixing Up The Medicine is a loose, lively collection of Jagger/Hart originals that features a hit-list of top players. On it you will hear old friend Olly Blanchflower on double bass; Atcha band alumnus Dylan Howe on drums, veteran producer John Porter, who’s worked with artists including The Smiths, Roxy Music, Buddy Guy, BB King and Elvis Costello. Porter in turn hired experienced guitarist Neil Hubbard (Bryan Ferry, Joe Cocker), alongside some south London mates of Hart on horns - Nick Payn and Frank Mead. Jagger explains, “Then I got in John Etheridge - who’s an old pal and who once played with Soft Machine - to add some jazzy guitar, and Jody Linscott who I’ve known since the Seventies, on percussion. Mostly the tracks were cut live in the studio as that’s what I know.” Into that roll call we can also add brother Mick on backing vocals. As for Chris and Charlie’s inspiration, the inventive pair roamed far and wide: “Charlie’s a bit of a jazzer, then I found this obscure poet called Thomas Beddoes, he says of the early 19th century writer and physician.I was reading this book by Ezra Pound, and he mentioned Beddoes. I found this book of his called Death’s Jest Book, in which he wrote these kinds of weird plays. He was a poet from Bristol, and his father knew Shelley, so he was coming in just after the Romantic poets. He was an alcoholic and he committed suicide by poisoning himself in Basel in 1849. He was only 45. I read some of his verse and took them and put them to music.” Jagger used Beddoes’ poems for three songs contained on the new album: the irresistible Madness-like ska-pop knees-up of the opening Anyone Seen My Heart?, the sea shanty-ish Loves’ Horn and the voodoo soul of Wee Wee Tailor. Into Hart’s ‘jazzer’ category we can fit Talking To Myself, the New Orleans sass of lead track Merry Go Round and the in-the-wee-small-hours croon and groove of A Love Like This. Honourable mention, too, to the comforting bluesy lament of Hey Brother, a lovely ode to lifelong fraternal bonds. Mixing Up The Medicine is a joyful, life-enhancing album by a man well versed in a whole range of musical styles, distilled into 10 tight tracks. “Then I realised ‘mixing up the medicine’ is also a line in Subterranean Homesick Blues” Jagger chuckles. “I’d forgotten that. But I’m a big Bob Dylan fan, so that can’t be a bad thing, right ? |
The New Album Mixing Up The Medicine Includes ‘Merry Go Round’
Released September 10th Pre-order Now CD, Vinyl & Digital via links below ALBUM: https://ChrisJagger.lnk.to/MedicineWE SINGLE: https://ChrisJagger.lnk.to/MerryGoRoundWE 
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Mixing Up The Medicine track by track:
Has Anyone Seen My Heart
“These are Beddoes lyrics. This is a good opening statement of intent because I
always liked that bluebeat sound. I used to love going to those dancehalls, and this is
pre-reggae, Desmond Dekker and all that. It seems a bit strange, putting a
19 th century poet with bluebeat, but I love that juxtaposition. Musicians like doing
something new because you have to work it out. And there’s no guarantee it’ll work.
“We put horns on, and then I got my brother to sing in lockdown, which he finally did.
He couldn’t complete it for ages because he was unable to work his studio! I was
saying, just do it on Garageband! Then he had Matt Clifford set it up, and he did a
really good take and sent it to me and I said, no, can you do it again? And he did it
again! And he did it even better. And he really liked the track.”
Merry-go-round
“That’s really Charlie’s song, but he had it straight ahead. And I said: let’s get a bit of
Professor Longhair feel on it which made it funkier; I wrote a few lyrics, but it’s
basically his song. And John Porter did a great job on it, he lived and recorded top
bands in New Orleans after quitting the lights of Los Angeles so he did a good job on
it adding that guitar topline. Nick Payne came up with the horn arrangements and
played flute. I hope they like it in the Crescent City.”
Love’s Around the Corner
“Like in the lyrics, I really did sew a button on my coat! I do shit like that… I wanted to
write about really ordinary experiences. There was another line about dropping a
glove on the road that I didn’t use. But in the middle of those ordinary things, you
have a thought. Lyrics are funny things… I sent it to Charlie and he came up with the
music. Then I had the line about fixing a handle on a door, which means people can
come and visit you, which was pre-lockdown. But that was a metaphor for the end of
lockdown. Charlie developed the mundane, everyday idea into something more up
with the ‘loves around the corner’ something more hopeful. Sometimes you write a
lyric and you don’t know what they mean, then you try and work it out. That’s what
makes a lyric interesting to me. Otherwise you write clichés.”
Talkin’ To Myself
“I sang the melody and words down to the phone to Charlie, and he came up with the
whole arrangement. We both really like Mose Allison, that kind of jazzy piano. The
lyrics are inspired by the experience of writing the book, and I more or less
improvised them as we played it. That was recorded in Charlie’s house, with Les
Morgan playing great drums and Charlie on bass and piano.”
Happy as a Lamb
“Again, I was the guy in the lyrics who was sleeping in my socks! I’ve got 15 sheep
here in Somerset, and we had a ram come in for the autumn, so produced half a
dozen lambs but a couple were poorly so we brought them up to the house. We slept
downstairs and Kari-Ann woke up in the middle of the night as one of them, called
Alfie, was licking her foot wanting more milk! I wrote some lyrics and sent them to
Charlie, who lives in the city and didn’t quite cotton on at first so I had to convince
him. Then he became really enthusiastic when he was playing piano, I said: ‘Charlie,
can you play more like a lamb, jumping?’ He got into it.”
A Love Like This
“That’s Charlie’s song. Sometimes it’s nice to be a singer and just interpret someone’s
words. Frank Sinatra never wrote a song but I don’t think anyone really cared,
because he brought a lot of people’s songs alive. But as we were recording I wrote
extra verses about going to Paris or Rome, and I wrote an intro, so we extended it. I
love all that Frank Sinatra, Tony Bennett style – they’re so cool, so effortless. We
can’t help fall in love with it.”
Love’s Horn
“We did it originally with a loop track, just on a computer, and it really worked. Then
I did it in the studio towards the end of the session and it didn’t work as well as the
loop. This is another Beddoes one, and there are a lot of words in it, and it’s quite
hard singing that many words, so you have to keep it quite simple. There’s a
springtime theme – he’s writing about the swallows and the linnets. And what I like
about the lyric was that he was writing pre-science. He went back to Shakespeare,
writing slightly archaic stuff even then. So I got interested in magic and sorcery, and
how people thought before we had all this science we now know. In the old days,
people believed in fairies and ghosts, which is more interesting!”
Wee Wee Tailor
“Beddoes again – this is mad, I could never write something as off-the-wall as this,
about a tailor who lives in this garret, and a witch lives below him with a parrot,
whose ‘grandsire’ is the devil. He steals eggs from her hen so she turns him into a
cockerel, and when he lays eggs, she charges people to come in and see. It’s quite
weird! I had a tune for it, and when Charlie was visiting, sitting at my old upright
piano, we worked it out. Dr John had just died and obviously we loved Mac, knew his
music, had met him. I said: let’s do a voodoo Dr John take on this. So again we got
that New Orleans feel. It’s fun when you do records to try things you’ve never done
before.”
Hey Brother
“I just sat down at the piano and it appeared, it’s very simple. Charlie thought this
was a worthy idea – it’s great to have someone to bounce off. It could be about Mick
– or it’s about anyone in that situation, anyone’s brother, anyone’s friend. It’s that
thing of evoking a feeling of connection and kinship. When we recorded it, Charlie
wanted a singer-songwriter, John Lennon-y feel so we cut it live with him trying to
imitate my amateur piano playing!”
Too Many Cockerels
“This has a Cajun/zydeco feel, is from some years ago and I pulled it out of the vaults.
Charlie wrote the music, and it runs on 5 beats or 3/2 time. It’s a bit odd, so when we
played it to the musicians they weren’t quite sure… But it is interesting doing
different time-signatures. And obviously it’s just one chord. But the lyric is true: I’ve
got chickens and I’ve got too many bloody cockerels because Kari-Ann wouldn’t kill
any of them. That’s my recording of them on there in the early morning. There were a
few moans from the neighbours too, but recently the fox had around a score of them
so the numbers have reduced!
Has Anyone Seen My Heart
“These are Beddoes lyrics. This is a good opening statement of intent because I
always liked that bluebeat sound. I used to love going to those dancehalls, and this is
pre-reggae, Desmond Dekker and all that. It seems a bit strange, putting a
19 th century poet with bluebeat, but I love that juxtaposition. Musicians like doing
something new because you have to work it out. And there’s no guarantee it’ll work.
“We put horns on, and then I got my brother to sing in lockdown, which he finally did.
He couldn’t complete it for ages because he was unable to work his studio! I was
saying, just do it on Garageband! Then he had Matt Clifford set it up, and he did a
really good take and sent it to me and I said, no, can you do it again? And he did it
again! And he did it even better. And he really liked the track.”
Merry-go-round
“That’s really Charlie’s song, but he had it straight ahead. And I said: let’s get a bit of
Professor Longhair feel on it which made it funkier; I wrote a few lyrics, but it’s
basically his song. And John Porter did a great job on it, he lived and recorded top
bands in New Orleans after quitting the lights of Los Angeles so he did a good job on
it adding that guitar topline. Nick Payne came up with the horn arrangements and
played flute. I hope they like it in the Crescent City.”
Love’s Around the Corner
“Like in the lyrics, I really did sew a button on my coat! I do shit like that… I wanted to
write about really ordinary experiences. There was another line about dropping a
glove on the road that I didn’t use. But in the middle of those ordinary things, you
have a thought. Lyrics are funny things… I sent it to Charlie and he came up with the
music. Then I had the line about fixing a handle on a door, which means people can
come and visit you, which was pre-lockdown. But that was a metaphor for the end of
lockdown. Charlie developed the mundane, everyday idea into something more up
with the ‘loves around the corner’ something more hopeful. Sometimes you write a
lyric and you don’t know what they mean, then you try and work it out. That’s what
makes a lyric interesting to me. Otherwise you write clichés.”
Talkin’ To Myself
“I sang the melody and words down to the phone to Charlie, and he came up with the
whole arrangement. We both really like Mose Allison, that kind of jazzy piano. The
lyrics are inspired by the experience of writing the book, and I more or less
improvised them as we played it. That was recorded in Charlie’s house, with Les
Morgan playing great drums and Charlie on bass and piano.”
Happy as a Lamb
“Again, I was the guy in the lyrics who was sleeping in my socks! I’ve got 15 sheep
here in Somerset, and we had a ram come in for the autumn, so produced half a
dozen lambs but a couple were poorly so we brought them up to the house. We slept
downstairs and Kari-Ann woke up in the middle of the night as one of them, called
Alfie, was licking her foot wanting more milk! I wrote some lyrics and sent them to
Charlie, who lives in the city and didn’t quite cotton on at first so I had to convince
him. Then he became really enthusiastic when he was playing piano, I said: ‘Charlie,
can you play more like a lamb, jumping?’ He got into it.”
A Love Like This
“That’s Charlie’s song. Sometimes it’s nice to be a singer and just interpret someone’s
words. Frank Sinatra never wrote a song but I don’t think anyone really cared,
because he brought a lot of people’s songs alive. But as we were recording I wrote
extra verses about going to Paris or Rome, and I wrote an intro, so we extended it. I
love all that Frank Sinatra, Tony Bennett style – they’re so cool, so effortless. We
can’t help fall in love with it.”
Love’s Horn
“We did it originally with a loop track, just on a computer, and it really worked. Then
I did it in the studio towards the end of the session and it didn’t work as well as the
loop. This is another Beddoes one, and there are a lot of words in it, and it’s quite
hard singing that many words, so you have to keep it quite simple. There’s a
springtime theme – he’s writing about the swallows and the linnets. And what I like
about the lyric was that he was writing pre-science. He went back to Shakespeare,
writing slightly archaic stuff even then. So I got interested in magic and sorcery, and
how people thought before we had all this science we now know. In the old days,
people believed in fairies and ghosts, which is more interesting!”
Wee Wee Tailor
“Beddoes again – this is mad, I could never write something as off-the-wall as this,
about a tailor who lives in this garret, and a witch lives below him with a parrot,
whose ‘grandsire’ is the devil. He steals eggs from her hen so she turns him into a
cockerel, and when he lays eggs, she charges people to come in and see. It’s quite
weird! I had a tune for it, and when Charlie was visiting, sitting at my old upright
piano, we worked it out. Dr John had just died and obviously we loved Mac, knew his
music, had met him. I said: let’s do a voodoo Dr John take on this. So again we got
that New Orleans feel. It’s fun when you do records to try things you’ve never done
before.”
Hey Brother
“I just sat down at the piano and it appeared, it’s very simple. Charlie thought this
was a worthy idea – it’s great to have someone to bounce off. It could be about Mick
– or it’s about anyone in that situation, anyone’s brother, anyone’s friend. It’s that
thing of evoking a feeling of connection and kinship. When we recorded it, Charlie
wanted a singer-songwriter, John Lennon-y feel so we cut it live with him trying to
imitate my amateur piano playing!”
Too Many Cockerels
“This has a Cajun/zydeco feel, is from some years ago and I pulled it out of the vaults.
Charlie wrote the music, and it runs on 5 beats or 3/2 time. It’s a bit odd, so when we
played it to the musicians they weren’t quite sure… But it is interesting doing
different time-signatures. And obviously it’s just one chord. But the lyric is true: I’ve
got chickens and I’ve got too many bloody cockerels because Kari-Ann wouldn’t kill
any of them. That’s my recording of them on there in the early morning. There were a
few moans from the neighbours too, but recently the fox had around a score of them
so the numbers have reduced!
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