The Joy of Six 1441

"His central idea, as he has written before, is that people should own their data. Personal data is any data that can be linked to us, such as our purchasing habits, health information and political opinions." Alex Zarifis on Tim Berners-Lee's vision of the future of the internet.

Sarah Lyons on the ubiquity of violence towards women: "The one man present was in total shock, he had never heard women talk so candidly like this before, the way we talk amongst ourselves, and he genuinely could not comprehend how much violence we had all collectively endured He left that night visibly shaken, changed."

Niamh Gallagher reviews a history of the Great Famine: "There is no doubt that food was available in Ireland throughout the crisis – just not to those who needed it most. The year 1845 was a vintage one for oats; in 1846, 3.3 million acres were planted with grain, and Irish farms raised more than 2.5 million cattle, 2.2 million sheep and 600,000 pigs, most of which were exported to Britain." 

"For a man who said he hated politics, it is exactly his uncompromising sense of right and his engagement with the world that will make his legacy everlasting." Kenny Monrose pays tribute to Jimmy Cliff.

Jude Rogers says the Eighties television series Edge of Darkness speaks to the Britain of 2025: "As well as trusting its viewers with the complexity of its plot, much of the making of Edge Of Darkness was also audacious. It pioneered the use of Steadicam in its first episode, following Peck from his hotel room in the lift, through the foyer, down the stairs to a basement garage to meet shadowy government attaché Pendleton."

"Early 1645 Parliamentary forces seized Shrewsbury. In June 800 Parliamentarian men pushed south towards Ludlow, attacking Stokesay en route. The garrison were heavily outnumbered and defending what was now essentially an ornamental castle. A bit of back and forth parlay and the garrison surrendered." Keep Your Powder Dry has a survey of Civil War sites in Shropshire that confirms Stokesay Castle was built chiefly for show.

Who Steve Winwood played with as a young teenager

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I've heard stories about Steve Winwood, as a young teenager, had played with the some of the American blues greats when they visited the UK.

Now I've found some detailed information in an interview with him from 1982 - it's on his own website.

In the first extract here he talks about his involvement in those years with Jamaican musicians in Birmingham

As for Chris [Blackwell], I met him in 1964 at Digbeth Civic Hall in Birmingham, which has always been a big center for Jamaicans in England; they used to hold their dances there, and naturally Chris was in on the ground floor in terms of Jamaican ska and rocksteady. Business-wise, he and Island were the ground floor.

Anyhow, I'd been playing at Digbeth since I was 14 with the Muff Woody Jazz Band, my brother's group. And that was where I met Spencer Davis, too. But my own Jamaican connection goes back to Digbeth Hall in 1961, when I jammed there with Rico, the trombonist who had worked with the Skatalites and all the other great early Jamaican acts. 

I was just 13 but I used to go there and play with Owen Grey, Tony Washington, and Wilfred 'Jackie' Edwards. Jackie, you'll recall, wrote the Spencer Davis Group's first number 1 hit in England, Keep on Running, and a followup, Somebody Help Me. I wrote When I Come Home with him for the group.

And the second, on American musicians starts with the interviewer:

There must have been some unheralded live backup work in the early days, when the Spencer Davis Group and the early Yardbirds were doing gigs at haunts like the legendary Crawdaddy in Richmond, Surrey.

Sure! I did backups for Sonny Boy Williamson - as everybody did - but also for T-Bone Walker, Charlie Foxx, John Lee Hooker, Memphis Slim. John Hammond, too. 

I met John on a train, while going down from Birmingham to London; this would have been about 1963 and I was 15. He told me he had a gig in Birmingham the next week at the College of Advanced Technology and I showed up and played piano behind him. 

Those kinds of spontaneous musical meetings were special back then, and definitely helped shape my growth.