Mind if I turn on*.the radio?

We talk a lot on A Story To Tell about great musical artists, obscure songs, forgotten albums, killer party tunes, all sorts of things. However, it is not that often that we talk about inanimate objects. There wouldn't on the face of it appear to be too much scope for discussion, after all. However when you stop to think about it, one of the interesting aspects of musical creativity is that all of it, with the obvious exception of the human voice and the use of body parts for percussion, is made with objects that of themselves can do very little, the instruments themsleves. Now, unless your life is one massive Fantasia sequence, where objects animate themselves and spring to life willy-nilly, or you are a huge acid casualty, this statement may appear pretty banal.

Of course instruments require the input of us humans to create the wonderment of music, the clue is in the name you idiot writer. They are instruments, instruments of our creativity, the mere vehicles of our musical output. But the relationship, of course is symbiotic, and what is amazing is the wonderful array of instruments that we have at our disposal, increased manifold by advances also in electronic equipment, and how we have learnt to use them, to diversify their sounds, to test their very limits, and in doing so stretch the boundaries of our own perceptions and understanding of the world we inhabit. Is that not part of what music is all about? And the story of how instruments first came about is surely an interesting tale to tell as many are absolutely bizarre concepts taken out of their accepted context, or perhaps that is just me.

Now I don't know how the guitar was first invented, but I do know that Hendrix could do things with an electrified version that defy belief. I don't know who first twisted brass into a trumpet shape, but I do know that Miles Davis could bring sounds out of it that sounded like nothing else on earth. I don't know how the African Kora came to be, but I do know that Toumane Diabate is a god-like virtuoso on it. However, I do know, and now I am getting to the point of this posting, who invented the LM-1 Drum Computer, and believe it or not you also know the sound that this machine makes. I also know that one particular exponent used it to an effect, if not as startlingly creatively as those talents, then every bit as masterly, and arguably with more influence.

Step forward, of course, the one and only Prince, whose use of the Linn Electronics LM-1, one of the first programmable percussion machines and the first to use digital samples of real drum sounds, came to define his work throughout the 1980s. Now it would be churlish in the extreme to reduce Prince's incredible musical talents and prodigious output in this decade to one tool, and this is not the point here. But rather I just wanted to draw attention to the instrument itself and quite how ubiquitous it is in much of Prince's best work. Pick out any (yes any) tune from "1999" or "Purple Rain" for an example of how good the sound from this machine is. I told you that you knew its sound. Indeed it is not just Prince who used it extensively.

Along with its successor the LM-2 (LinnDrum, which added cymbals to the mix), and the Roland TR-808, the machine arguably defined the decade, certainly the early part of it. And so, for many reasons, the Linn Drum, and inventor Roger Linn, should be celebrated, and their importance to music heralded. If for nothing else than without them we would not have "The Ballad Of Dorothy Parker", and I for one am unwilling to countenance such a reality. It is just too gruesome for words.