The legendary Steve Winwood tonight, recorded live at the Manchester Opera House in 1997. This is an interesting concert in that he plays a lot of his early pre-Traffic material, when he was lead singer for The Spencer Davis Group. The songs haven't aged a bit, nor has Winwood.

It's a great concert from one of the pivotal figures in rock music.

Enjoy.

When news first broke there had been an accident in Paris shortly after midnight on August 31, 1997 and it involved the former Princess Diana, it was sketchy and vague at first.

The BBC World service, in their typical cool-bordering-on-icy delivery, made it sound as if there had been a minor traffic accident and it was no big deal; just a few slight injuries all around.

But as time went by the news reports became more and more frequent, the news of the accident occupied a larger spot on the hourly news and half-hourly bulletins. And within an hour the news finally reported that Diana had in fact died.

It was still early in the morning in the UK when the news initially broke, and so the full impact wouldn't be felt for several hours in Europe. The news outlets in the States were already gearing up so by the time news did reach the British public, it was a full-on, non-stop, wall-to-wall news event and would stay that way the better part of three days.

In case you forgot (it was fourteen years ago), or have vague memories of what turned out to be a major outpouring of sympathy, here are the first reports, shortly after the Midnight news followed by a later report when it was learned she had died. All from the BBC World Service on August 31, 1997.

More 90's tonight. This one comes by way of The Apples in Stereo, whose homage to The Beach Boys has been at the core of their existence. Tonight it's a track off their 1997 album Tone Soul Evolution with Get There Fine.

Nice to know they're still together (although with substantial personnel changes the past few years and a self-imposed vacation from the day-to-day with a band) as well as touring throughout Europe this summer. Still going strong and gathering new fans along the way.

Quietly getting together in 1992. Quietly breaking up in 2001 and quietly reforming for a European tour this year. Papas Fritas made some ripples during the 90's. The Boston-based Trio went from being an experimental get-together among three students to getting a label deal with Minty Fresh Records.

Tonight's track comes off one of those Minty Fresh albums. Hey Hey You Say was issued as a single and was taken off their third album for Minty Fresh, Helioself in 1997. It did moderately well, but not well enough to sustain interest in the band too much after 2001 when they quietly left the scene to pursue other careers.

But having created something of a cult following during their formative years and after their split, the band were encouraged to reform for a tour of festivals in Europe this year. This time as a greatly expanded unit. Whether they will stick together once summer is over is anyone's guess, and it's not sure they will do a tour of the U.S. anytime after the festivals are over.

But here they are as they were in 1997 when they were up-and-comers.

One of the more interesting, if not perplexing days in history. News of a cult in San Diego, searching for the Mothership, were all lined up in neat rows, covered in purple sheets and calling themselves Heavens Gate. They had ingested a concoction of poison and vodka and were presumably waiting for the ship to arrive. Their somewhat askew leader, Marshall Applewhite, had somehow convinced them it was the only method they could use to get there and another mass suicide of a religious cult had been discovered. Although they had actually done it earlier, to coincide with the arrival of the Hale-Bopp Comet, the bodies were discovered on the 26th and by the 29th all the lunacy had been revealed. Meanwhile, on the other side of the ocean, news of the first animal cloning had been announced. Dolly the Sheep made an innocent entrance to the shock, awe and perplexed horror of many who were convinced human cloning was next on the list. Still hasn't happened. In more mundane news, fighting was still going on in the West Bank and hopes for a peace settlement in that region were becoming remote with Palestinians and Israelis making claims and counter-claims of violations in a cease-fire.

And that's what March 29th was all about in 1997. Here is Newshour via the BBC World Service for March 29th, 1997.

I have been woefully remiss in not posting anything by Radiohead on the Roundtable since we got started. There is no reason for it. I love the band. But in my desire to make music available on this blog that hasn't been heard, or maybe forgotten about, or maybe never gotten the chance in the first place, I didn't think about Radiohead because it's an assumption everyone knows about them and probably everyone reading this website has all their stuff anyway. So I would be preaching to the choir.

Or maybe not.

I was listening A Reminder the other day. It's from the Karma Police ep that came out in the UK in 1997. It's possible you might not be all that familiar with it, since it hasn't wound up on an album.

In any event, my apologies for the oversight and my offer of something a little bit obscure by a legendary band.