A Story is a Deal

For 40 years Allan Taylor, born in Brighton in 1945, has been considered as the consummate performer, a writer of literary gracefulness whose troubadour chronicles encapsulate the realism of otherwise unsung heroes, otherwise uncharted lives. His songs are written from a lifetime of travelling; always the observer passing through, each song is a vignette of life, like a story told over a drink in a bar. Each has an integrity that tells you it comes from something real; characters come to life like people you know and places become as familiar as if you had been there. Stockfisch Records again produced a special project including a symphony orchestra: We speak about the 2016 production with the grandseigneur of songwriting, Allan Taylor! The SACD will be titled: "There Was a Time".

This moody, lyrical work is loosely based on an American silent called The Barker. Infinitely superior to its model, it is the story of the leader of a small group of traveling players who returns to a small town and meets his son, the product of a distant affair. Ozu transforms the slightly melodramatic tale into an atmospheric and intense drama. Donald Richie has called this film, "the first of those eight-reel universes in which everything takes on a consistency greater than life: in short, a work of art." Its best feature is the depiction of life on the boards - the empty bowls to catch raindrops through the leaking roofs, the pantomime 'dog' who misses his cue and the casual cigarettes between exits and entrances. Ozu remade the film in colour in 1959 as Floating Weeds.

Philadelphia socialites Tracy Lord and C.K. Dexter Haven married impulsively, with their marriage and subsequent divorce being equally passionate. They broke up when Dexter's drinking became excessive, it a mechanism to cope with Tracy's unforgiving manner to the imperfect, imperfections which Dexter admits he readily has. Two years after their break-up, Tracy is about to remarry, the ceremony to take place at the Lord mansion. Tracy's bridegroom is nouveau riche businessman and aspiring politician George Kittredge, who is otherwise a rather ordinary man and who idolizes Tracy. The day before the wedding, three unexpected guests show up at the Lord mansion: Macaulay Connor (Mike to his friends), Elizabeth Imbrie - the two who are friends of Tracy's absent brother, Junior - and Dexter himself.