Liverpool 2008

For a Beatle, Ringo Starr has had a relatively quiet latter-day solo career. After salvaging his tattered reputation in 1992 with Time Takes Time – his first album in nearly a decade and his first in nearly 20 years to serve his legend well – Starr settled into touring regularly with his ever-changing All-Starr Band, documenting almost every tour with a live album, then turning out a new studio album every three or four years…

The magnificent Norman cathedral on the rock, part of the World Heritage site shared by Durham University and Durham Cathedral, was the setting for the world premiere of Jon Lord’s “Durham Concerto” commissioned by the University to commemorate its 175th anniversary. The 1,000 strong audience rose spontaneously to its feet as the final climax reflected Sir Walter Scott’s vision, which is engraved on “Prebends Bridge: “Grey Towers of Durham/Yet well I love thy mixed and massive piles/ Half church of God, half castle ‘gainst the Scot”. The work emotionally evokes the sense of history, scholarship, place and community evident in Durham – an unbroken line from St Cuthbert and the Venerable Bede, Europe’s leading scholar of the 7th and 8th centuries, to the modern day university.

Berry Is On Top (1959). If you had to sweat all of Chuck Berry's early albums on Chess (and some, but not all, of his subsequent greatest-hits packages), this would be the one to own. The song lineup is exemplary, cobbling together classics like "Maybellene," "Carol," "Sweet Little Rock & Roller," "Little Queenie," "Roll Over Beethoven," "Around and Around," "Johnny B. Goode," and "Almost Grown." With the addition of the Latin-flavored "Hey Pedro," the steel guitar workout "Blues for Hawaiians," "Anthony Boy," and "Jo Jo Gunne," this serves as almost a mini-greatest-hits package in and of itself. While this may be merely a collection of singles and album ballast (as were most rock & roll LPs of the 1950s and early '60s), it ends up being the most perfectly realized of Chuck Berry's career…