Summer Solstice Serendipity
I knew of Michael Cox as the editor of some first-rate anthologies of classic ghost stories; it was only upon reading his obituary (he died on March 31) that I became aware of his rather extraordinary career. In his last few years he battled cancer, and one of the drugs he was prescribed was a steroid that gave him incredible amounts of energy, which he used to write two massive and critically-acclaimed mystery novels, The Meaning of Night and The Glass of Time. The real revelation, though, was that he had started his career as a musician, recording two albums in the early 70s as Matthew Ellis, and another one as Obie Clayton. There was a bit of intrigue at the time of the first Ellis album; rumors abounded that "Ellis" was actually Procol Harum's Matthew Fisher, a speculation buttressed by the fact that Ellis's album was on the same label as Harum. Cox tells the tale to Claes Johansen here. This new knowledge naturally made me want to hear Cox's music, sparking a search that finally bore fruit today with the posting of a rip of the first Ellis album on the blog Time Has Told Me. It's quite a nice album, mostly dramatic ballads with a folk bent, quite lavishly arranged; the label must have been very committed to Cox and spared no expense in the studio. The tune that really grabbed my ear is "Avalon," which, serendipitously, is a Summer Solstice song (that's today!):
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