Church Avenue

Two floors above the butcher, first door on the right

Life filled to the brim as I stood by my window

And looked out on those, Brooklyn Roads

Thought of going back. Neil did!

I can still recall the smells of cookin’ in the hallways

Back in the radio daze I played this tune on my ‘Oddities & Obscurities’ segment (later morphed into ‘Harmonica Riff Hits & Bits’) having just discovered there was an understated harp riff. A search then for the harp dude was fruitless. So I revisit once more and I plea for help from my Raffer patrons to discover the uncredited performer. I’ve exhausted all avenues and, as you are probably aware, I hate giving up – it’s not in my DNA. Neil’s unreachable, Artie Schroek likewise, Chip Taylor’s record company doesn’t respond and the fan club too.

I don’t believe it is Tommy Morgan (I’m sure he would have mentioned it) and recently, I ascertained that Larry Nelson could be a strong candidate.

Hugh McCracken blew harp on Neil’s You Got To Me in 1967, but this has a different vibe.

Is it just me interested in the crediting of the harmonicists? Could it have been Neil?

I’m reasonably certain that I hadn’t heard this tune until many years after its release in 1968. In fact, one of the reasons for inclusion on my blog is that I used Brooklyn Roads as the template for my HSC English exam’s creative essay. Looking back it’s quite likely the marker was well aware of my plagiarism. There was ‘closing my eyes’ and ‘going back’ and definitely ‘smells of cooking’. I think I used way too much of Neil’s imagery! A comp (limentary) pass for my final year was not anything to brag about. Funny, my best result was in Biology an exam I exited early to drive to the Albert Ground for cricket practice. Only had the license for a week or two, but had been driving my red Vee-Dub beetle (thanks Nan) up and down our driveway (sometimes out in the street – please don’t tell anyone) for two years. “He’s got a good head, but it’s always somewhere else”. Yeah! cricket!

I wasn’t really a Neil Diamond fan per se, but a magazine book I was gifted by Bruce, from our local BP servo, on the 1975 Australian cricket team featured their profiles and many of the players proclaimed Neil as their favourite artist. As an aspiring test cricketer that was enough incentive for me get onboard (Cracklin’ Rosie). To this day I still spin Brooklyn Roads, Crunchy Granola Suite and Soolaimon. I wonder why none of the test cricketers were as keen on Chain, The Dingoes or Madder Lake as I was?

In 1976 I even bought a ticket to his concert at the Sidney Myer Music Bowl. I can still recall the anticipation of Neil’s stage entrance with the echoes of cricket’s slow hand clapping expressing his fan’s impatience. For some reason the concert commenced more than half an hour after the scheduled time and this delay had its consequences later. Settling well back from the stage on the grassy knoll, Neil was a mere speck in the distance – no TV screens around then. The sound was clear and crisp, but I remember feeling somewhat underwhelmed after a brilliant emotive, crescendoing opening with Missa merging into Soolaimon. I didn’t feel the concert could rise above this and it didn’t help that there was no Crunchy Granola or Brooklyn Roads.

It was Moomba time in Melbourne and those bloody fireworks (I’ll never understand the attraction, those poor canines, and what about the cost! – surely the money could be better invested) went off during a quiet moment in his Jonathon Seagull set. They bloody well scared the living daylights out of the Port Phillip Bay Gulls (no such thing as a seagull), who had camped nearby! Apparently Alan Murphy, the General Manager of Moomba, had contacted Neil’s manager out of courtesy at 9:50pm conveying the message that they couldn’t hold off the fireworks until after the concert. Neil’s manager fired back threatening to cancel the concert the following night. He didn’t follow through.

I did take a valuable lesson away from Neil’s concert. On my next visit, a decade later to the same venue, I found a comfortable (non-ticketed) location just outside the hessian clad fencing to experience Annie Lennox’s Eurythmics and Jimmy Zavala’s live harp on Missionary Man.

If I close my eyes I can almost hear my mother callin' “Neil, go find your brother Daddy's home and it's time for supper - Hurry on" And I see two boys racin' up two flights of staircase squirmin’ into papa'a embrace Where's it gone? Oh where's it gone? Two floors above the butcher third door on the right life filled to the brim as I stood by my window and looked out on those, Brooklyn Roads

I can still recall the smells of cookin' in the hallways Rubbers drying in the doorways and report card I was always afraid to show. Mama' d come to school and as I'd sit there softly crying Teacher's say he's just not tryin' He's got a good head if he'd apply it, but you know yourself it's always somewhere else. I built me a castle with dragons and kings and I'd ride off with them as I stood by my window and looked out on those, Brooklyn Roads

Thought of going back, but all I'd see are strangers' faces and all the scars that love erases, but as my mind walk through those places I'm wonderin' what's come of them does some other young boy come home to my room? Does he dream what I did, as he stands by my window and looks out on those, Brooklyn Roads

Hey if any of you out there know, or have an inkling of the harpist in Brooklyn Roads could you leave a comment below, please?

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