Anyway, who can really resist a place that has been identified in travel journals as something of a "A risk-taker's paradise A crime-ridden labyrinth. A beautiful, death-haunted shambles. It's the Keith Richards of cities, a menacing, espresso-crazed circus clinging tenuously to a fierce slope." Again... (Not Me.) Plus people who really know Keith will tell you that underneath all that surface image stuff, lies a warm and gentle soul.

My grandad was in both Naples and Sicily during the war. Tough times for all - that is an understatement. He loved those places, and loved the character of the local people he met. As he got older and much more sentimental, no doubt aided by a few wee whiskies, he would get all misty eyed for Naples. A place to which he always wanted to return.

I obviously inherited that same sensation - also falling in love with both, undoubtedly we share something of a fascination for the Romans and the ancient Greeks. Plus, I cannot wait to go back.

Undoubtedly one of the greatest memories of being in Naples for me has to be the long weekend that I spent recording/with local heroes Planet Funk. (Spring 2001) As with anywhere in the world, it is only through being and working with 'natives' that you quickly get a true sense of the heart within a community. That unfortunately is beyond most tourists as we whizz through destinations, gulping in the sights and the atmospheres, but little else really. In any case, they were not only a musical outfit, as in every sense I could feel that they were indeed more like a huge family. A brotherhood for sure. And even if I was never sure how many were actually in the group, I can tell you that I have never been in a more packed studio control room. Particularly so at the end of the day, when the wives, girlfriends, and even kids seemed to have also turned up in their dark and dingy (forgive me) studio basement.

And what a feeling that was. Seeing them all together - bouncing of the walls to the groove of their music - while listening to the song that we had created together that same day. And what a tune they gave me to work with? Because although I had never heard of the group previously and literally knew nothing about them. Those opening orchestral chords sealed the deal with me, and I knew on hearing them alone that I wanted to go to work with this band from Naples called Planet Funk!

Jim Kerr
18th September 2017