I haven’t updated my blog for many, many months. My mind has been drifting in and out of darkness for so long. I am weary. I uploaded this mix recently. A gentle fusion of ambient jazz which I named kintsukuroi. Something beautiful holding together something very broken.
Music Is Love
Pacific Grass Electric
On his return to San Luis, David began assembling his more musically-minded friends with the loose idea of forming an electric band. They called their new band ‘The Habit’, and soon enough, they were plugging in and playing shows at school parties and dances. Looking back, the most important thing about this period for the budding musician was that he wrote his first song ‘This is Love’. Recorded in the back of a local electronics store, the song was predominantly used to promote the band. This in turn helped the band attract more bookings, and gain traction. On the way to one of these early gigs in central California, they heard their song being played on the radio. The promoters were using it to advertise the gig. This was a huge deal for the young singer songwriter.
David :
There is nothing like hearing something you wrote on the radio for the first time. Many more would come, but that first time was memorable.
At the end of their sophomore year, the band broke up. It was 1967 and the summer of love had begun, and David didn’t want to be a spectator watching from afar. He wanted in. On returning to school, he decided that he would put another band together and release more singles. He had already been sending demos to a producer in Hollywood named Frank Slay for the last two years. Although all were politely rejected, Slay encouraged Riordan to keep trying – which is exactly what he continued to do. With a growing love of vocal harmonies influenced by San Franciscan bands like Jefferson Airplane, David knew it was time for something new.
The something new christened themselves ‘Pacific Grass Electric’ (not to be confused with the L.A. band ‘Pacific Gas & Electric’). The band featured David and guitarist Greg Likins. Greg had previously been a member of the Bakersfield garage rock band The Avengers, who had local success and were managed by ‘Bakersfield KAFY’ DJ Mike Lunky. Between 1965 and 1967, Likins and ‘The Avengers’ released five 45s and played support slots for the Beach Boys, the Animals, and the Seeds.
From an interview found on the opulentconceptions.com blog Greg Likins states :
We spent some time coming up with the perfect name, because that is one of the most fun things about starting a band. One of our early rehearsal places was a barn outside of town. There was a large sign on a poll as we drove into the driveway. The utilities company in that part of California was run by Pacific Gas and Electric. It seemed like a sign from God. So we became Pacific Grass and Electric.
The San Luis Obispo’s Cal Poly band also featured drummer Nick Alexander, keyboard player Bill Masuda, bassist Bill Reynolds and a powerful lead female singer named Liza Gonzales. They quickly began making an impact on the California Central Coast circuit. At a gig just north of Los Angeles, Frank Slay showed up and, liking what he heard, signed the band to Dot/Paramount Records.
During this time, Timothy Leary’s counter culture rallying cry ‘Turn on, tune in, drop out’ was everywhere. The younger generation was experimenting with the hippie philosophy practicing meditation, peace, love, and dropping out – the LSD experience. To the managers of AM radio stations, this was a scary prospect. As a result, they had begun refusing to play records where the band name or lyrical content contained any drug references. One multi-station radio chain even announced that it would no longer play any record unless it came with a printed copy of the song’s lyrics. They proposed hiring a screening panel composed of an ex-drug-addict, an actual drug-addict, a prostitute, and a drug pusher to sift out offending songs with drug references. Although this particular approach at censorship was not notably successful, radio stations did start to pull bands whose names and lyrical content referenced drug use. In an era where records were not purchased unless they had received radio play, and on the advice of Slay, the band changed their name to ‘The Yankee Dollar’.
With the group based in San Luis Obispo, they were ideally situated mid-way between San Francisco and Los Angeles. In the early days touring bands like Jefferson Airplane, Janis Joplin, Hendrix, The Door’s and The Moody Blues would tour by bus, and San Luis Obispo was a stop-off point on the West Coast circuit. As such, Yankee Dollar played as the opening act for all of the visiting bands as they came through the San Luis Obispo. It was a very exciting time to be a part of the music business.
As 1968 came around, The Yankee Dollar embarked on the recording sessions for their first album. Determined to ride the hippy wave and make some dollars of their own, Dot/Paramount pushed the band with a promotional campaign that touted them as the next big thing.
The back of their self-titled album has a review by Roy Freeman :
The Yankee Dollar is no accident. The group was formed at Cal Poly, San Luis, California, when members, individually, felt they had more to say than they were saying in the groups they were in. Their groove lies somewhere between the avant-garde Dylan folk of San Francisco and the show wise excitement of Los Angeles and the Strip.
Recorded at ‘Art Laboe’s Original Sound’ on Sunset, the band became a tighter performing unit. Prior to their time spent in the studio, they were a somewhat rawer proposition, with a sound more leaning towards folk rock than psychedelia.
The album featured 11 tracks; ‘If In Swimming’ was written by Riordan. ‘Johann Sebastian Cheetah’ was a composition written by Riordan, Likins, and Freeman. ‘Follow Your Dream’s Way’ written by Greg Likins. 4 tracks written by the song writing partnership of John Carter and Tim Gilbert. With 4 covers versions written by Donovan, Chet Powers, Buffy St.Marie and Dylan.
The first single release for The Yankee Dollar was ‘Sanctuary’, and was backed with ‘City Sidewalks’. Both sides were written by John Carter and Tim Gilbert and produced by Frank Slay. Frank had previously had produced singles for a host of artists including ‘The Rockin’ Ramrods’ and the ‘Strawberry Alarm Clock’. ‘Sanctuary’ received a good amount of airplay and began to rise up the charts, but didn’t become a hit. There were forces at play that, at the time, the band weren’t privy to. The debut single was effectively crushed by a very powerful playlist consultant who Frank Slay had gotten into trouble with over a prior release, also written by Gilbert and Carter (and produced by Slay) called ‘Acapulco Gold’ by the garage band ‘The Rainy Daze’. Due to its drug reference the song had caused problems for the consultant, and perhaps he saw this as his chance to get back at Slay. Thus, the single disappeared from playlists and then from the charts. The band’s second single release saw ‘Sanctuary’ re-issued, but backed this time with ‘Live and Let Live’ another Carter/Gilbert/Slay production. Sadly, it didn’t even crack the top 50.
Like many bands before and since, the pressure mounted and cracks were beginning to show. Before work could start on their follow-up album, the band broke-up, falling victim to differences of opinion regarding musical direction and vision for the future. One final single was posthumously released as a promo only – ‘Mucky Truckee River’ backed with ‘Reflections Of A Shattered Mind’. Following the split, Liza Gonzales, Bill Masuda and Greg Likins moved to Pismo Beach and formed a band they named ‘Rainforest’. Liza and Greg were to eventually marry, and continue making sweet music beneath the bed covers. David returned to school, and then headed to Hollywood in the summer of 1969.
While in conversation with David in 2019 he reminisced of his time in The Yankee Dollar fondly :
I had dinner with Liza and Greg about a year ago in Las Vegas. We had not seen each other since the band broke up. We had a lot of laughs about those times, when we made our first record together. Nothing like the first time…
Green Eyed Lady
Arriving in Hollywood, David looked up his old music contact Frank Slay. At this time, Frank wasn’t just a record producer – he also ran a music publishing company. He was one of the last Tin Pan Alley moguls, paying songwriters small regular fixed salaries to ghostwrite songs for other artists.
Two such songwriters were ‘Jerry Corbetta’ and ‘J. C. Phillips’. David joined their ranks and would write new songs every day. The routine began to shape and sharpen David’s songwriter talents – something that would later pay dividends. Off the back of the songwriting, the friends were hoping to be signed as performers and get their own recording contracts. As luck would have it, all three did exactly that. Jerry Corbetta signed to ‘Liberty’, with the Corbetta sound developing into a hybrid of jazz / rock that would later become the direction for the heavy vocal and guitar led ‘Sugarloaf’ and the band ‘Sweet Pain’. Riordan and J. C. were both signed to ‘United Artists Records’, with their albums being produced by – you guessed it – Frank Slay.
During their busy recording schedules, J. C. and Riordan found time to drop into the studio to see Corbetta. The album the band were recording was almost finished, but Jerry wasn’t completely happy. He confided to his friends that they were lacking a track that could be made into a single suitable for AM radio play.
David :
J.C. and I did what we always did when the three of us wrote together. We asked him if he had any musical licks lying around. Jerry played us the organ/bass run that would become the opening to Green Eyed Lady. We organized the music track in about ten minutes and J.C. and I went off to finish some lyrics I had been working on that day about a ‘green eyed lady’. Jerry laid the track down with the musicians who would later become Sugarloaf. We gathered up later, and our little two minute AM single had grown into a six minute album cut. Jerry had jammed an amazing organ solo in the middle of it. We didn’t think much of it; other than we liked it, so Jerry put our lyrics on front and back and that was it. The first inkling that Green Eyed Lady was something special was when the record company heard it and insisted it be featured as the first cut on the album.
‘Green Eyed Lady’ was a huge success and a surprising phenomenon for all of them. Of course, the three friends had written many records together during their time in Slay’s stable. But with ‘Green Eyed Lady’ in the bag, everything was about to change. FM radio picked it up from the album release and started playing the track in its long album form. They played it over and over again. The FM DJs were crazy for it, and their listeners agreed. The noise it had given the band on the FM circuit, built them an audience – something they took full advantage of with a ‘Sugarloaf’ tour. The momentum of ‘Green Eyed Lady’ continued to sky rocket and the record company demanded that the long album track be cut down so it could be released as a single to be played on the more conservative AM stations who would never play a five minute track, let along one that was seven.
They spent three months in the studio trying to cut the track down. Alas, no matter what they did, they just couldn’t create a revised version they were completely happy with. Then one day, a radio DJ from Texas called the studio and said he had made his own shortened edit suitable for a single release. He sent through his edit and when Corbetta, Riordan and J. C. heard it, they knew straight away that it would be the version they released.
The uptake by AM radio was not instantaneous, and the single did not become an overnight success. But it was a grower. It began to make some headway in the West Coast secondary markets and slowly built momentum. Eventually, every AM station had it on their recommended playlists and it slowly crept up the charts. More and more stations started to play the record and the release started to outgrow the band’s expectations. And, while they knew it was a great track, they were eager to see exactly how far it could go.
It travelled steadily across the country from West to East. This meant that by the time it was off the air on the West Coast, it had just been added to playlists in New York. Owing to this slow build, the song stayed lodged on the charts for many weeks and eventually, on 17th October 1970, it topped out at #3 nationally, rubbing shoulders with ‘I’ll Be There’ by The Jackson 5 at #1, and Neil Diamond at #2 with ‘Crackling Rose’. The track was a huge success in the Billboard Hot 100, and was RPM Magazine’s number one single for two weeks.
Beyond any doubt, it was by far ‘Sugarloaf’s most successful record. It has since been covered by a number of artists, has featured on too many compilation albums to list, and ran as a break theme for the Johnny Carson’s Tonight Show. It even featured in the movie ‘Home Alone 3’.
David :
It was just one of those unexplainable things that happens sometimes.
At the same time as ‘Green Eyed Lady’ was hitting the charts, David, J. C. and a few other musical friends put together another band, calling themselves ‘Sweet Pain’. Aside from David and J.C. the other members included Bob Spalding, Carl Johnson, Frank Demme, and Marty Foltz.
‘United Artists Records’ gave the new band some studio time where they recorded tracks for what would be their debut long player. The self-titled ‘Sweet Pain’ album emerged in 1970, and was successful enough for the record company to put the band on the road, ‘Sweet Pain’ toured extensively as a second act to many headliners of the day and also played alongside ‘Sugarloaf’ who were riding high on the success of ‘Green Eyed Lady’.
In 1973 a second album was somewhat posthumously released on ’20th Century Records’ it was called ‘Sweet Pain Featuring David Riordan & Rob Moitoza – Sweet Pain Too’. As far as David was concerned he’d already moved on.
David :
We got to live out our rock and roll fantasies in a golden era of music. ‘Sweet Pain’ came to an end in 1972. I was burnt out from the road and I went home to San Francisco to consider what to do next.
Warehouse Sound Co.
Back in San Francisco, David looked for a new outlet for his creativity. Having had a keen interest in new technologies he eagerly followed the rise of component stereo systems – which had become popular in tandem with the explosion of new music. Music lovers had begun to buy and put together their own systems which were built to play the latest far-out sounds on. A friend of David’s had pioneered the mail order sale of these systems through his company ‘Warehouse Sound Co.’
In the winter of 1969 a 19 year old Cliff Branch returned from Thailand and started attending classes at the California Polytechnic State University. While attending Cal Poly the young entrepreneur conducted other business, one of which was selling sapphire rings and stereo components that he had sent back from Asia. Cliff soon partnered with a seriously smart class mate, Tom Spaulding.
Tom and Cliff were, in their own words, in the right place at the right time. They sold their goods to the counterculture college kids, who were to be the springboard to their success. From this initial start the business grew. The two friends, along with a fellow student Roger Rohrs, decided to opened a head shop just off campus. They christened the head shop ‘Super Sonic’. Just as things got rolling Rohrs left for Vietnam, leaving the duo of Branch and Spaulding to forge a path of their own.
‘Super Sonic’ sold Cliff’s sapphire rings, along with vinyl albums and the usual head shop gear. But Cliff was fascinated by the sale of the stereo gear he had imported from Asia. The business moved forward getting deals with Sony and Pioneer and began to concentrate on the sale of component music systems.
Dropping out of college as ‘Super Sonic’ grew they took on additional business partners and opened a much larger retail store in downtown San Luis Obispo, this store they called ‘Stereo West’. They added a record store and business was booming. The growing mail-order stereo components part of the company grew faster than the retail stores. Calling the mail-order business ‘Warehouse Sound Co.’ they went from strength to strength, moving to larger and larger premises. The company began to offer compact stereo components pre-packaged into complete systems that were affordable and sounded great.
Tom Spaulding and Cliff Branch’s ‘Warehouse Sound Co.’ had evolved into a thriving mail-order success. The ever growing company needed larger premises, and an ancient three-story brick warehouse on Santa Barbara Street was found. The once condemned building was structurally sound but they still had a tough time convincing the city planning department that their refurbishing plan was feasible. Eventually, with the building codes met and the refurbishments complete, ‘Warehouse Sound Company’ moved in.
They had administrative offices on the top floor, and a 25,000 square foot facility consisting of the two remaining floors. These were used for storing ‘Warehouse Sound Co.’ products, and still left enough space for an advertising agency and a recording studio.
Branch’s writing abilities soon became instrumental in marketing their custom stereos to the younger generation. Their new high fidelity systems no longer looked like the old-fashioned living room stereos of the previous generation, these new systems were exactly what the college kids wanted.
The company had landed deals with JBL and Pioneer and started a professional products division which brought them into contact with the rock scene and bands in L.A. The sold Fender and Vox guitar amps and other equipment from Altec Lansing and TEAC, and custom made mixing boards.
Tom was in charge of the rock and roll side of the business, but Cliff often travelled south to the Troubadour to hear sets by many of the best performers of the time, including Jackson Browne, James Taylor and The Eagles. JBL used the small room of the Troubadour to field test equipment and Cliff soaked it all in.
It was around this time that Cliff connected with David. Looking for even more ways to market ‘Warehouse Sound Co.’ Cliff hit Riordan with an idea. Could he write and produce a promotional album that could be given away with the purchase of a ‘Warehouse Sound Co.’ sound system. David was over the moon, and immediately jumped at this opportunity. For him, it was an unmissable chance to write and release music without the need to go out on the road to promote it. David and Cliff signed a deal with Capitol which included David’s solo album and produce other albums indecently for ‘Warehouse Sound Co.’
David approached his friend Patrick Gleeson, an early pioneer in synthesiser music who had also played with a lot of jazz musicians. Patrick played a key role in connecting Riordan to a collection of amazing session players who were based out of L.A. including Harvey Mason and Lee Ritenour. In 1974, and without any heavy record company pressure, these musicians found themselves in the studio having a great time putting together the album that would go on to be called ‘Warehouse Sound Co. & Friends’.
Cliff Branch, from the ‘Warehouse Sound Co. & Friends’ sleeve notes :
It was very much a learning experience for us all. And thoroughly fun. From hearing David’s first ideas which he so often puts down on a 3340 in his living room – to the sessions, more sessions, mix down, editing, and final product. David Riordan has worked closely with us for nearly a year, acting a a consultant for our professional products group along with Tim Weisburg (A&M Records). About a dozen people in Warehouse Sound Co. are also on the album in various forms: Dave Delfino did some of the guitar work, along with the main background vocals together with his good friend Dan; others from just about every part of the company helped in vocal backgrounds as well as with production. Our friends at Hidden Valley Music seminars provided assorted players. We hope you’ll enjoy listening as much as we got off making it happen.
* Referring to the TEAC A-3340, a semi-professional tape deck capable of Simul-Sync recording, quadraphonic, stereophonic and monophonic recording and playback.
Photo’s taken from the Warehouse Sound Co. & Friends recording sessions.
Patrick Gleeson, synthesiser pioneer, photographed in the early seventies
The album featured eight tracks, seven of which were penned by David Riordan, including the opus ‘Medicine Wheel’, which was split into two parts; ‘Dialogue and Theme’. This track was to be used and reworked for both the ‘Warehouse Sound Co. & Friends’ and David’s solo album which was also called ‘Medicine Wheel’, the theme and message would also go on to be the seed of inspiration for the track ‘Before I’m Gone’ which would appear on David’s concept album ‘Wilderness America, A Celebration Of The Land’.
After the positive feedback from the ‘Warehouse Sound Co. & Friends’ album Spaulding and Branch decided to hold a massive party. In keeping with their brand ethos they transformed the ‘Warehouse Sound Co.’ rear parking lot and roof space into a concert venue. It also gave them the opportunity to test the $55,000 PA sound system they had put together for the Christian touring group ‘Up with People’. It was to be used during their 1976 ‘Super Bowl’ halftime performance.
David :
Tom showed off his new sound system and Tim and I did sets. Tim had played on my Capital album. I remember the Capital folks being there but I don’t think Medicine Wheel was out yet.
Read more here: https://www.sanluisobispo.com
David Riordan and Tim Weisberg playing at the Warehouse Sound Co. concert at Railroad Square on the 26th May 1975
David and his friend ‘Tim Weisberg’ performed at Railroad Square, with the free concert attracting thousands. The massive crowd seemingly shutting down half of the town. The fantastic day of music was enjoyed by all, no one fell off the roof and they even had an airplane pulling banner advertisements in the sky. It all went off without a hitch until Cliff Branch was called down to the police station, it seems that in all the excitement, no one had applied for a permit.
Cliff Branch, in partnership with Capital Records, went on to release two further ‘Warehouse Sound Co. & Friends’ albums. This time though ’Warehouse Sound Co. & Friends Vol. II’ and ‘Warehouse Sound Co. & Friends Vol. III’ featured a compilation of various artists but each release did featur a David Riordan solo recording, those being ‘Day In The Sunshine’ and ‘Hold Me’ respectively.
With Capital Records working closely with Cliff Branch on the ‘Warehouse Sound Co. & Friends’ compilation albums it wasn’t long before they approached Riordan with an offer of studio session time and his first solo release.
These sessions would become the aformentioned ‘Medicine Wheel’ album, featuring a host of tracks based around the ‘Warehouse Sound’ and using some of the same session musicians. These included; Tim Weisburg on Flute; Charles Larkey, Jim Hugart, and Reine Prass on Bass; Gus Gustavson on Clavinet and Electric Piano; Harvey Mason on Drums; Carl Johnson and Lee Ritenour on Electric Guitar; Tom Morgan on Harmonica; Lyn Blessing on the Organ; Glen Cronkite on Percussion; David Paich, Mike Melvoin, and Tom Salisbury on Piano; Robert Giltridge on Steel Drums; with Backing Vocals by Dan Lambert, David Delfino, and Michale Dalein; and all arranged and conducted by Pat Gleeson. Despite this prestigious line-up of luminaries, David’s heart was not 100% in to the project. It was now 1975, and the record industry had changed, transforming from a smaller, regional endeavor into a global powerhouse that the suits now ran like big business.
David :
Not that you couldn’t make money before that but the pop music business I was in was really small in comparison. There were basically seven major record companies and in my day in the late sixties and early seventies you could make a demo for about $250 and have the expectation the A&R departments would listen to it. If they liked it, it would be on the street three weeks later. Radio also changed. I really loved the regional aspect of radio when I was touring. The jocks were real personalities (like Wolf Man Jack) and knew a lot about music. By the mid- seventies, airplay was being governed more by watered down national play lists and it just lost some of the magic for me. Touring also became a big venue business. There was so much cash, that to get signed in the mid-seventies you needed big management etc. It was just not for me. I would play in all those companies later in my interactive entertainment career, but in the seventies I just didn’t have any desire for the corporate media circus.
At this point in his life, David had no plans to go back on the road. Besides which, he had become very interested in film and creating albums with long form tracks that could build a narrative and tell a story. David’s attention turned to the concept album. He produced two in quick succession; ‘Christmas in San Francisco’ and ‘Wilderness America, A Celebration Of The Land’. With both projects being funded by arts foundation grants David was given the freedom to experiment and play with the longer conceptual tracks, which he did in both vocal and instrumental forms.
‘Christmas in San Francisco’ was a concept album that San Francisco’s ‘Embarcadero Arts Foundation’ funded. Half the album was recorded in the ‘Grace Cathedral’, which David found to be one of the most amazing acoustic spaces he would ever play. Riordan’s friend and collaborator Pat Gleason created the synth tracks in the studio and these were then over dubbed with the choirs in ‘Grace Cathedral’. The rest of the album was recorded in the diverse neighbourhoods around San Francisco. The song ‘Sing a Song of Christmas’ written and performed by David also received some local radio air play. Everyone invloved was pleased with the finished result and quickly David moved on to his next musical project.
Wilderness America, A Celebration Of The Land
Emily DeSpain Polk was born in Aberdeen, Washington, United States, on July 6, 1910 and raised on a country ranch in central Oregon. She said that her love affair with the earth had begun while being carried in a knapsack on her father’s back when she was just 8 weeks old. In a life that would span more than nine decades the artist, designer, author, and poets achievements in conservation were recognised when, in 1995, she was added to the ‘Women of Achievement’ section of the United States Library of Congress.
Back in 1970 Polk wrote an essay inviting California residents to participate in a groundbreaking conservationist group.
She wrote :
The unfashionable comments I’m going to make may seem soft-headed. Nevertheless, at this time of world history, a sense of perspective can only be achieved by saying a few unfashionable things, and a swift look at eternity is about as unfashionable a subject as one could wish.
Read an article about Emily DeSpain Polk here: https://www.newtimesslo.com
Christening the new group SWAP, for Small Wilderness Area Preservation, Polk would soon find herself on the front line trying to save one of the oldest forests in California. That forest is the Los Osos Oaks State Reserve, and the saving of that small, wild space was the first of the ‘SWAP’ group’s many success stories throughout California in the 1970’s. During that decade, Polk and her conservation teams identified and saved thousands of acres across the state of California all in danger of being destroyed to make way for more homes, shopping malls, and businesses.
With the promise of a grant from the ‘Bank of America Foundation’ she began a project to produce a promotional album of nature songs. To get the funding approved she would need to source a musician of some caliber. Contacting Cliff Branch from ‘Warehouse Sound Co.’ she enquired if he knew of any musicians who would be interested in taking the lead of the environmental musical project. Cliff told her the man she was looking for was David Riordan. The project felt right for David, his mother had introduced him early to the natural world, and it was the first place he found a divine spirit. He agreed to participate. With a recording artist on board the funding from the ‘Bank of America Foundation’ was secured and the project went ahead. Cliff Branch would be credited as an executive producer with Riordan being given full artistic freedom to manage the writing and production of the album.
Emily Polk with Cliff Branch from Warehouse Sound Co.
Paul Hillery caught up with with Cliff Branch in February 2020. Cliff :
I first saw David performing in concert at the university. I believe we had mutual friends. It’s been 50 years – so I can’t remember the details of our first meeting, but I knew Emily Polk well – and David had an interest in helping to preserve natural environments so we all got together. David was very passionate about saving our environment long before it was fashionable. David suggested doing an album, and Warehouse Sound Co. had a recording studio.
David Riordan, Peter Scott, and Tom Salisbury
Riordan, along with Peter Scott, a music producer friend in San Francisco, began to piece together an idea for the concept album. With the hope that it would raise the profile and raise funds for the ‘Small Wilderness Area Preservation’ group.
David :
All my life, my writing retreats were always in natural places. I wrote most of the lyrics for this album on a road trip through all my favourite western US nature places. So, this was a theme close to my heart. In spite of where we find ourselves now, I am hopeful we are slowly changing our relationship with the natural world. The Climate crisis may ‘encourage’ us to move faster.
The album was to be called ‘Wilderness America / A Celebration of the Land’, and was a musical exploration of our place within the cycle of living things. All compositions were specially commissioned for the album and blended with natural sounds recorded in the wild. All proceeds from the album would be used to help preserve and protect the environment.
Production was made possible with the grant from the ‘Bank of America Foundation’, with additional funding from co-sponsoring organisations including :
Defenders Of Wildlife
Friends Of The Sea Otter
National Parks and Conservation Association
Sierra Club
Small Wilderness Area Preservation
The Wilderness Society
National Adudubon Society
The album was recorded and mixed at Beggs / AZ, San Francisco by Richard Beggs assisted by Jenny Marlow. With additional done at: Golden West Recorders, Los Angeles (Bruce Ablin); Different Fur Music, San Francisco (John Vierra); Wally Heider’s Studio C, San Francisco (Ken Hopkins).
The full track list to the album is :
A1 Dawn
A2 Metropolis
A3 Water Cycle
A4 Mountain
B1 Manchild
B2 Flight Of The Egret
B3 Windsong
B4 Before I’m Gone
B5 Manchild
‘Wilderness America, A Celebration Of The Land’ opens with the track ‘Dawn’ which was written and performed by Iasos, one of David’s contemporaries, and a good friend who was also from the Bay Area. This track was the albums atmospheric introduction and is followed by a song, whose originally title was ‘Living in the City’. Written by David and it became ‘Metropolis’. Sung by Walter Hawkins a gospel singer of some note. Hawkins had actually become part of the project quite by chance when David had asked his friend Patrick Gleeson if he knew of any R&B/Gospel singers in the Bay Area. Gleeson went on to introduce Walter, a singer he knew from the famous gospel family of Edwin Hawkins. David found working with Hawkins to be a real joy, and his effervescent interpretation of ‘Metropolis’ still remains one of his favourite cuts from the album.
Other than ‘Metropolis’, which was recorded in LA, the rest of ‘Wilderness America, A Celebration Of The Land’ was recorded at the San Francisco studio of Francis Ford Coppola. Interestingly enough, at the time ‘Wilderness’ was being recorded, Coppola was filming ‘Apocalypse Now’ – so in between studio sessions, the musicians were able to view the seemingly never-ending film rushes arriving from the Philippines.
Tom Salisbury conducting the ‘Water Cycle’ session
‘Water Cycle’ which was arranged and conducted by Tom Salisbury, who would also play the Piano and Synthesizer Harp on the track, starts with a lone flute that evokes the fragility of the woodland and the drip dropping sound of water, it builds from a stream to rolling river, and finally comes to rest on pastures adorned with birdsong and the sound of wonder. The track contains performances from :
Teresa Adams on Cello
Dan Patiris on English Horn
Patrick Fawcett and Jere B. O’Boyle on Flute
John H. Krueger, Jr. on French Horn
Randal G. Pratt on Harp
Glen Cronkhite on Percussion
Elizabeth Bell and Miriam Dye on Viola
Carl Pederson, Emily Van Valkenburg, Nathan Rubin, and Roy Malan as the Violin Quartet
‘Mountain’ features string arrangements by Ed Bogas with Riordan writing and taking the vocal lead.
Before me she stands
like a long lost friend
revealing only what she wants to.
She’s hard to comprehend.
My years to her are seconds
in the blinking of her eyes.
She whispers gentle warnings
as she stands against the sky
mountain, mountain, mountain . . .
For the track ‘Manchild’ composed again by Riordan we have vocal backing by Lynette Hawkins, Tremaine Hawkins, M.L. Benoit, and Roberta Vandenunt, with Caryn Robin taking the vocal lead.
‘Flight Of The Egret’ is a wonderful instrumental based around the vibraphone, composed and played by Glen Cronkhite.
The instrumental leads into ‘Windsong’ with Cronkhite now taking percussive lead and picking up the pace. Vocal duties performed by Ann Hughes, Duane Sousa, Gary Roda, and Pat Hubbard.
Windsong
lift my mind.
It’s been too long,
Windsong . . .
You are the air
I want to share
with someone else
before I’m gone . . .
Next is ‘Before I’m Gone’ and Riordan’s cry for people to act before it is too late. During the production of the album David received a tape from some of the researchers, it contained recordings of wolves out in the wilderness. With fortuitous grace these recordings were the same key being used on the track ‘Before I’m Gone’. The addition of these recordings added an unforgettable atmosphere to the track, which also featured Glen Cronkhite on percussion. Composer Riordan would take vocal and guitar leads. The strings were wonderfully arranged by Ed Bogus.
The album ends with a short reprise of ‘Manchild’ featuring a choir consisting of Caryn Robin, Ed Bogas, Jane Riordan, Lynette Hawkins, M.L. Benoit, Roberta Vandenunt, Peter Scott, and Tremaine Hawkins. Composed again by Riordan, who also takes lead vocal and play’s electric piano, the album fades out.
The whole album features some truly great session musicians who give wonderful performances, these include…
Patrick Gleeson on string arrangements and conducting
Ed Bogas on string arrangements, piano and backing vocals
Rob Moitoza and Doug Lunn on Bass
Lee Pastora on Congas
Harvey Mason and Gaylord Birch on Drums
Lee Retenoir and John Blakeley on Guitar
Mike Melvoin on Piano
Glen Cronkhite on Percussion
Mel Martin on Soprano Saxophone and Alto Flute
John McFee on the Pedal Steel Guitar
As the finishing touches were added to ‘Wilderness’, David began to realise that on some level this environmental concept album would be his last. After 10 years in the music business he was still enjoying the storytelling part of the songwriter, but he no longer had the heart for the recording business and knew he could not go back out on the road.
David :
The end had been coming for a while. I did not want to go back on the road and I was beginning to think my new songs were stale. I was interested in the film business and other things, so when this commission from the Bank of America Foundation came up to benefit seven different environmental organizations I saw it as sort of a swan song. The album was released through the environmental groups in early 1975. It made them a bunch of money through donations which I liked, and it introduced me to others in the marine environmental world that eventually would lead to us doing Google Ocean together in 2008 and going on many diving expeditions, swimming with whales, etc…
The album was well received but it took 30 years from its initial release to get the praise it deserved. Thanks to the inclusion of album tracks, especially ‘Metropolis’ onto DJ mixes, the album found it’s way into vinyl collectors wants list’s. The album’s profile was finally raised – along with the new price it began to command on the collectors’ market. Tracks from the ‘Wilderness America, A Celebration Of The Land’ eventually found their way onto commercially released compilations albums, including the superb ‘Psychemagik Presents Magik Sunrise’, and more recently on the exhaustive compilation ‘Visible and Invisible Persons Distributed In Space’ on ‘Numero Group’.
A long time ago in a galaxy far, far away…
Just as ‘Wilderness’ was wrapped up, a friend of David’s from Hollywood suggested that he should come out and join him, producing films. This seemed much closer to the direction David wanted to move in, and so he took the friend up on his offer.
The storyteller in David that had been nurtured and honed in musical writing now had a new muse – film. As one grizzled movie veteran once told David, “kid, this is the greatest medium in the world. I can type out some imaginary scene today, and the next day we are creating it.” But David still wasn’t satisfied. He soon realised that although producing movies was a great thing to be doing, it just wasn’t feeding his creative side as much as he had thought it might. He enjoyed throwing all the elements together, but it was always someone else’s work. Lamenting this fact, it was during a lunch with the then CEO of ‘Lucasfilm’ that things took a new direction.
The second movie of the ‘Star Wars’ franchise, ‘The Empire Strikes Back’, had just completed its run and ‘Lucasfilm’ were looking to expand into the new technologies of the early 1980s. These included cable television, early computer games and consoles, Laserdiscs and Video Cassette Recordings. Having always been very keen on new technology, David joined ‘Lucasfilm’ and spent the next year scouting all that was new in film technologies. One of the stops along the way was the ‘Massachusetts Institute of Technology’ in Boston, where David saw the first experiments in interactive movies.
David explains :
These were authored bodies of story material that the player could direct to some extent. In the beginning these took form as simple video games, but over the next fifteen years they would evolve to become interactive television with actors and all. I was lucky enough to be in the right place at the right time, and embarked on my next major career in Hollywood as an interactive movie director and executive at places like Time Warner, Disney, and Phillips Media. Eventually this grew into the 65 billion dollar game business we have today.
‘The Computer Graphics Group’ at Lucasfilm, which was run by Ed Catmull, had been tasked with developing the first digital editing system, christened ‘Edit Droid’. George Lucas wanted to edit his movies without a lot of people around, however, the concept was far too ahead of its time and never really took off in the way Lucas had envisioned.
In 1985, Steve Jobs resigned from ‘Apple’ and was looking for talent to help him with his latest project, the ‘NeXT’ computer. As a result, he purchased a share of ‘The Computer Graphics Group’ from Lucas in 1986, and renamed it ‘Pixar’.
David :
That 10 years he [Jobs] was out of Apple was a really interesting time for him and they never really cover it in his bios. Ed and all his group came over to ‘NeXT’ and one of the first things they did was create the now famous Pixar desk lamp demo to show off the ‘NeXT’ at a computer science convention. John Lasseter joined them around then, and the rest as they say is history. Before Ed left, he helped shape up the ‘Lucasfilm Games Group’ and we made one crude game called ‘Ballblazer’. I was just an independent game designer for ‘Lucasfim’ in those days. Later, ‘Lucasfilm’, now a big corporation, hired me to advise them on “new” technologies in 1980 to see if they wanted to invest. That year led me to MIT to see the first interactive laserdisc movie that inspired my Interactive Entertainment career. Later, when I was at ‘Disney’ running their ‘Interactive Entertainment Group’, I saw Ed again when we developed the first internet game based on ‘Toy Story’. At that point ‘Pixar’ was in a shopping mall, hardly anyone knew what they would become. Ed was one of the most brilliant people I ever met, and ‘Pixar’s success has a lot to do with him.
In the 1980’s, David Riordan co-designed the video game ‘Ballblazer’, which was the first videogame developed between the ‘Lucasfilm’ and ‘Atari’ partnership. A little later Riordan also designed ‘It Came from the Desert’ for ‘Cinemaware’ while there he became one of the lead directors and producers for the company. He then went on to found ‘Philips P. O. V. Entertainment Group’ for ‘Philips Media’ in 1991.
By 1993, he was the designer behind the video game ‘Voyeur’ which was featured on the cover of ‘Time’ magazine’s issue entitled ‘Attack of the Video Games’. The article featured the most popular video game titles of the early 1990s and ‘Voyeur’ sat alongside ‘Mario’, ‘Sonic’, and ‘Mortal Kombat’. Riordan also directed the game ‘Caesars World of Boxing’ which won the award for the Best Sports game award at Cybermania ’94: He went on to win many awards in this field.
Serving as Philips POV Creative Director until 1994 he became ‘Vice President of Production’ for the entertainment division of ‘Time Warner Interactive’. During the 1990s he was also part of ‘Interactive Entertainment Studio for Disney’. Co-developing and producing documentaries for television and online, these include: ‘One World Journeys’, ‘Google Ocean’, ‘Random 1’ and the documentary film ‘Lost in Woonsocket’. He also worked for the noted American philosopher, Ken Wilber at Integral Life, facilitating global thought leaders attracted to Ken’s work.
David now runs his own convergence media company, ‘Story Studio’. He and his co-creators are crafting an alternative narrative to our current dystopian one that eventually will emerge as a dramatic television series and web programming.
I asked David if he looked back at his early musical life fondly. His career as an interactive movie director has been much longer, and more successful in it’s own way. Does the fascination people still have in his music surprise him?..
David :
I loved my music life. Making my first album when I was 18 and my first number #1 song at 20 was a dream come true. And we lived it fully. As the sixties revolution unfolded for all of us, the music was the soundtrack. Everything was new and the experimentation that took place is the stuff of legends. It was a time and place never to be repeated. My storyteller kept following my curiosity after the music died for me, which led to amongst other things, my 15 years helping to invent the interactive entertainment/game business. Another heady time and filled with great memories.
The fact that people have been circling around in the last few years as retro enthusiasts, is fun for me. I am happy to share what I remember. I hope it’s not too much…you did ask!
Thanks for your interest in doing this. It has a been a bit of a trip down memory lane. It evoked a lot of good memories of my music years, so thanks for that.
Be well, David
David Riordan was interviewed by Paul Hillery in the fall of 2019
Article written by Paul Hillery and edited by Stephen Dix
Hello. By now you may have gathered that this is the blog of Paul Hillery. I like my vinyl and dig my music. Now and again I write an article and I’m giving the articles a new home so you can find them easier. You’ll be able to link to them from this page in future.
More articles will follow . . .
And if you want an article that’s about me then please follow this link below . . .
Okay, so this post is me finally finishing something that I have been trying to do for blummin’ ages. Whilst compiling my Folk Funk & Trippy Troubadour series I listen to a lot of folk inspired music, one of my favourites is the artist I’m about to write about.
I first came across his music when his songs were covered by H.P. Lovecraft, and it was a few years later I found the beautiful back catalogue of music this artist left.
A big part of my musical journey was reading the magazine Straight No Chaser. I loved reading articles about music new and old and from a blend of genres. (Wax Poetics would fill the same hunger a little later) With my head filled with new names and albums I would spend hours in the local record shop (Spinadisc) listening and buying vinyl. I would also try and see as much live music as I could.
At the time I would drive down from Northampton in my Mini, or later my battered VW Beetle and visit the venues I was reading about; places like the short lived Rythmic in Chapel Market and of course the Jazz Cafe in Camden. I was lucky enough to see plenty of my favourite artists, present and past. From; Jimmy Smith to Marlena Shaw, Brian Auger to Richie Havens, Gil Scott‐Heron to Fred Wesley, Colosseum to Roy Ayers, Leon Russell to Mark Murphy, that name just a few I would get the chance to see up close at those great venues.
STFU during the performance
But by far my most cherished visits to Camden were those to see a spiritual folk singer, who in his woolly hat, John Coltrane T-shirt, battered jeans, hiking boots, and guitar in hand, just blew me away, time after time. His emotionally charged poetic lyrics, elaborately crafted songbook, and the velvet smooth voice that would fill my heart with joy every single time I had the honour to see him play.
As the gigs went on we started to sit upstairs in the restaurant to watch him play live from the great view being up a little higher offered. He would walk through the tables to get to the stairs that led down to the stage. And every time he would catch my eye and look at me in way of such spirituality that I was sure he remembered me each time. I’m not silly enough to think he actually did recognise me, but he just had that way about him, such presence.
I am of course talking about the one and only Terry Callier
I have searched the web for a full biography of the man and the artist, but it’s hard to find a single place where they talk about his life and career as a whole. I have taken chunks from interviews and obituaries to try my hardest to paint a fuller picture of one of musics almost lost greats.
Who only towards the the end of his life began to get the credit he deserved. He was taken far too soon. His writing was as wonderful as ever and meant just as much now as it had always done and his performances ever more intense.
There was a wonderful radio special about Terry that I think aired on Radio One, I do remember it was presented by Mica Paris. I wrote to the BBC a while back and asked for a copy, but alas, it no longer exists. The person who replied said they remembered it too and was gutted.
Any way I hope you enjoy the read and if you want some Terry Callier magic in your eargoggles then here is a mix I did to accompany the article. It features songs from all of Terry’s career and lot’s of live tracks too.
Unfortunately Mixcloud have pulled the mix from it’s hosting because it’s a single artist mix but you can listen and download using the link below :
Track listing
A beginning
Terrence Orlando Callier was born on May 24th, 1945, in Chicago, Illinois. The son of a modest working class Chicago family. He was raised on the notorious Chicago Housing Authority (CHA) at 848 N. Mohawk St, a public housing project, which was also known as North Side.
He was introduced to music at an early age through his mother’s love of jazz singers, especially Billie Holiday and Ella Fitzgerald.
Terry’s interest in music manifested very early on and from the age of three he would visit his grandmother who owned and ran a large boarding house on South Indiana Avenue.
She had an old piano there, and I would fool around on it. She rented to a variety of interesting transients — soldiers, musicians, drifters, anyone who was passing through town or needed a temporary place to stay. The musicians would sit down at the piano with me and give me tips. I sort of put these together into a kind of makeshift musical training at a very young age.
A little later Callier began studying piano in the local Chicago park field house.
On any summer night you could walk by and hear fantastic music – these guys could blow, and there were girl groups that sounded like angels . . .
His piano teacher was Sister Maria Theresa, who was a very strict teacher, and in his early teens he stopped attending lessons as he could no longer take her constant knuckle beatings when a mistake was made.
The Cabrini neighborhood of Chicago was a petri dish for all types of music, and a young Callier shared his musical playground with Major Lance, Jerry Butler, Ramsey Lewis and Curtis Mayfield.
Through his formative years Callier began to sing in doo-wop groups, liking the layered harmonies popular at the time.
Callier’s first groups were The Whippor-Wills, The Serenaders, and later The Saharas, which all featured the layered vocal harmonies of the doo-wop style popular at the time.
Callier, Mayflield and Butler would cover popular songs like Bang Goes Your Heart by the Moroccos and Crazy Little Mama by the Eldorados.
Terry was also beginning to get a feel for poetry and began experimenting to find an original angle to his own music.
He spent many lunch periods at high school singing in the bathrooms, he said this was principally down to the marble walls creating a nice echo.
Callier remembers . . .
. . . like it was yesterday the time the guys in the group let me sing This Is the Night by the Cool Jets, after a year of being in the background. Some guy stopped me half way and said: ‘Why are you trying to sound like somebody else? Just try and sound like you .’ That was the most influential thing anyone ever told me.
That neighborhood was home to Jerry Butler, Curtis Mayfield, Major Lance, Ramsey Lewis and a host of other people who were extremely talented
There was a fieldhouse over on Orleans near Division, and it had a series of meeting rooms, some of them with pianos, and they had great acoustics, so there would be four or five different vocal groups rehearsing
So I learned early on to listen to everything – classical music and ethnic music from Africa and Middle East, and it all comes out in your work
It was while attending college, he learned to play the guitar, and it was there he was also starting to experience the folk music explosion sweeping America.
Although a shy and introverted youth, Terry had begun writing his own songs and a guitar-owning friend set him on his musical path.
A guy in the dorm room had a guitar and he was always teaching me songs. So I went down to a coffee house in Chicago, and soon I was playing Wednesday through Sunday at that coffee house and having the time of my life
Chess
Callier and a borrowed guitar began making regular appearances at a coffee house called Fickle Pickle, which was one of Chicago’s numerous folk rooms. It was here he came to the attention of Chess Records arranger Charles Stepney.
So, in 1962, at the tender age of 17, Terry made a visit to Chess Records in South Michigan Avenue. He went in on a Monday, four tracks were recorded and one chosen to become Calliers debut single, this was ‘Look At Me Now’.
As far as I can tell it wasn’t released until sometime later on the Chess experimental imprint Cadet. Discographies list it as 1968. Don’t be fooled by the bootleg single with Etta James on the flip, it appeared in 2001 and was nothing to do with Chess. There was another single release in 2015, this time flipped with The Radiants Hold On, it states Geffen Records 1966 which confuses things even more.
He was asked by Leonard Chess to join Etta James and Muddy Waters on a Chess tour of America. He was overjoyed and went home to pack, but his Mother stepped in and stopped the young excited singer. She wanted him to finish his education and thought her young shy Terry wasn’t ready for the excesses of such a tour. So rather than become a superstar on the legendary Chess label, Terry stayed at home and revised for his exams. For a month after this show down, Terry and his Mother didn’t speak to one another, other than to say, “Pass the mustard”
Coltrane
Alongside the other folk singers, Callier was discovering John Coltrane, who had just released his free jazz album ‘A Love Supreme’.
It’s interesting to note that after seeing Coltrane live in 1964 Callier almost gave up music entirely. The intensity with which Coltrane and his band threw themselves into the music frightened him, because of these feelings Callier wouldn’t play again in public for a year.
Of seeing Coltrane live Callier said . . .
He was playing at a little club called McKees, and I got there early to see Elvin Jones nailing his drum kit to the floor. Then the quartet rocks on stage, and I wasn’t prepared for the intensity with which these guys threw themselves into the music – I had never seen men do that before in my life and it frightened me. It made me realise that everything in life was in this music: the beautiful and the ugly, the godly and ungodly. Not everybody wants to touch those places because there are things we have to forget in order to live with ourselves, and that music didn’t let you have any secrets
Preflight Byrds
I’m not completely sure of the date here the info I have found is very foggy. But at some point in the late 1950s early 1960s Terry met and joined forces with a young cocky white folk singer.
David Crosby had briefly studied drama at Santa Barbara City College before dropping out to pursue a career in music. They met on the folk circuit and together the two troubadours headed off to NYC and the Greenwich Village scene in search a recording contract, but it seems that at that point America was not ready for a black and white folk duo.
A new piece of music has surfaced which is reported to be Terry & David performing together at the Bitter End, NYC in 1962.
The Bitter End opened in 1961 as a coffeehouse and folk music venue in New York City’s Greenwich Village. During the early 1960s it hosted folk music “hootenannies” every Tuesday night and showcased a wide range of musicians and comedians. The club eventually changed its name to The Other End in June 1975.
The audio recording has been unearthed and shared by David Crosby’s friend Steve Silberman. I recognise Callier’s wonderful tone and some of Crosby’s phrasing but it doesn’t really sound like early recordings of Crosby. But the fact it comes from Silberman gives it credence. Have a listen . . .
Long Time Gone
There is a section in the wonderful David Crosby biography Long Time Gone, on pages 53 to 55, where Terry is mentioned. In the book Crosby spells the surname incorrectly as Collier, but in the rest of this section I will spell it Callier for ease.
It starts with a piece by Kevin Ryan remembering the Greenwich Village folk scene. David Crosby had arrived in New York and visited the studio in Cherry Lane. It states David moved into an unfurnished apartment and within a week he was joined by another folk singer, a black friend of David from Chicago, his name was Terry Callier. It goes on to describe a hip beatnic scene you’d expect from the Village at that time, it mentions some girls moving in. Kevin ending up on the couch, Terry on the floor with a girl called Renee, and Crosby had the only bed which he shared with another young lady.
David states in the book . . .
Terry Callier was a talented black musician from Chicago who came to Greenwich Village to break out of the ghetto blues trap, to be an intellectual, to confront issues of race and music. Kevin remembers that Callier would carry his guitar case whenever he went out, whether he was going to play or not, just so people would know he was a musician and not some black commuting from Harlem.
Back to David . . .
After I moved in with Kevin, I dragged Terry Callier home. Then we both dragged girls home until there were five of us living there. Terry was a slightly rotund, extremely talented young singer-songwriter. We met at the Bitter End, a new club that just opened on Bleecker Street. It used to be called the Cock ’N Bull. Terry and I liked each other’s style, more modern than folkie. We were folkies, but we were writing our own songs as well and we knew about jazz.
Terry impressed the shit out of me and I went up to him and said ‘Hey, man, you’re really good.’ He felt the same way about me. We started learning each other’s tunes and trying to sing with each other and it worked. We became an item.
Terry and David sang together as a team. In fact it was the first professional dates Crosby had played as a duo, not including the sibling partnership he had with his brother Ethan.
During the Monday night folk sessions the duo noticed a slight problem, the pair became conscious that there was some weird vibes coming from a few people. It was the fact one of them was white and one of them was black. A mixed racial duo was still a novelty back then, even in the bohemian setting of the Village.
The pair were well regarded and Crosby felt that if they had continued as a duo they would have won a recording contract. They had a definite thing happening. When Crosby traveled South later that year Callier remained in New York.
The next time the two met was a few years later, at a club on the South Side of Chicago, where Terry had gained a large following. I’m guessing this was probably Mother Blues, and around 1964.
In the book David states that he didn’t know what happened to his friend Terry Callier, not sure if he ever recorded because he lost track of him after that last meeting.
I read somewhere that this next scene happened back in Chicago. But I think, because of the timeline, it was more likely to have been in Greenwich Village.
It starts with the Chad Mitchell Trio, a North American vocal group, who Harry Belafonte had arranged to back Odetta and Miriam Makeba at Carnegie Hall on May 2, 1960.
The multi instrumentalist Jim McGuinn had become a member of the Chad Mitchell Trio’s backing band and consequently as they toured he also became part of Miriam Makeba’s musical set up.
Miriam Makeba performed at The Bitter End folk club in Greenwich Village in 1961 exactly the time Callier and Crosby are said to be in New York.
From 1962 McGuinn was working in the Brill Building writing tunes for Bobby Darin, he was also doing session work and playing folk gigs in the Village around this time.
So it has to be around 1961, at a Miriam Makeba gig, perhaps the one at The Bitter End, that Terry introduced his friend David Crosby to another musician friend of his Jim McGuinn. Callier had known McGuinn from the folk circuit and Jim’s time in the Limeliters folk band.
We know Crosby eventually left Terry in NYC to go south and this eventually led Crosby back to Los Angeles, California. In 1964 Crosby again met up with Jim McGuinn and as the stars aligned the other future members of the Byrds.
Jim changed his name to Roger, and the rest is their musical history.
Mother Blues
In 1964, Terry Callier went on to meet Samuel Charters of Prestige Records at the nightclub, Mother Blues. Charters offered to release an album and of course this time the young Callier eagerly agreed.
It was on a Saturday afternoon in 1964, at Webb Recording in Chicago, that they set about recording what would become the stunning debut album; The New Folk Sound Of Terry Callier.
Terry got the idea of having two bassists after hearing John Coltrane perform with the same set up in the club next door to where he was performing. The only other instrument used on the recording is Callier’s acoustic guitar and this allowed his extraordinary rich and gentle voice to build and build.
The two bass players were; John Tweedle and Terbour Attenborough.
A live gig was also recorded at Mother Blues in June 1964. It wasn’t released commercially until thirty six years later when it appeared on the Premonition Records label.
Of the tracks played that evening (which I have listed below) only one made it onto the debut album release;
Mother Blues was a folk club at the south end of a strip of bars, clubs, and restaurants that sprang up on Wells Street in the Old Town area of Chicago in the early 1960s. Owned by the lovable Lorraine ‘Mother’ Blue, it was a narrow room with a large cathedral like ceiling. A portrait of Catherine the Great hung on the wall near the stage. The stairs to the balcony had mahogany rails which originated from the Everleigh Sister’s bordello.
Through the 60’s Mother Blues featured tonnes performances by the likes of Chad Mitchell, Bob Gibson, Josh White, Odetta, Oscar Brown. Spanky McFarlane, Brazil ’66, Jefferson Airplane, and Jose Feliciano. With Jo Vapes, Ginni Clemens, Dwain Story, Fred Holstein and Terry Callier were amongst the regulars on open mike night. The open night was run by John Brown and advertised as hootenanny monday.
Jeff Chouinard would record most of the acts on to Tandberg 7” reel-to-reel in the sound booth. The tracks that made the CD are not however the entire set. Due to a recording error and technical difficulties four of the songs Terry played that night didn’t make the cut.
The Vanishing Debut
In 1965 the album was finished. It featured 8 tracks;
But producer Samuel Charters was said to be so moved by the music that he vanished, with the master tapes, into the Mexican dessert. It was rumoured that Charters had gone off to live among the Hopi Indians.
Callier would later say . . .
All I know was that I had recorded something for Prestige and it wasn’t released. About a year and a half later, I met with Samuel and I asked him what happened. He told me that he had gone to Mexico in a province where there were a lot of Indians and he just listened to the tapes and did mushrooms
Then, four years later, in 1968, Terry Callier learnt the album had finally been released. His younger brother Michael had seen a copy in a second hand book shop. At first Terry thought his brother was making it up but he soon found out that his album had finally hit the stores.
Two of the tracks from New Folk Sound, Spin, Spin, Spin written by Kent Foreman and It’s About Time again written by Foreman paired with Lydia Wood were later recorded by the psychedelic band H. P. Lovecraft. The band featured fellow Chicago folk club stalwart George Edwards. Edwards would later go on to co-produce several tracks for Callier in 1969.
The New Folk Sound of Terry Callier
So the album The New Folk Sound of Terry Callier had eventually appeared. But with little fanfare and no marketing push it soon disappeared again.
Undaunted, Callier remained a fixture of the Chicago and New York folk scene, and in 1970, Larry Wade, an old friend from High School, showed up.
Terry . . .
He came by my house one evening and told me about the Jerry Butler Songwriters Workshop, which was giving some writers an opportunity to receive an advance against royalties every week from Chappell Music. The only thing we had to do, after signing a contract of course, was show up and write songs, or even not show up and write songs, because it wasn’t a military type thing at all. Guys would come and stay all night, or you wouldn’t see guys for a week or so.
That wasn’t what was important. What was important was that every two or three months there would be a demo session, and the writers would either perform their own tunes or have other artists perform them. Everybody looked forward to that and wanted to be ready for it.
There were many gifted people in the workshop. Marvin Yancey and Chuck Jackson had early success. They had a group that recorded a couple of hits, and they also produced Natalie Cole’s first three albums, which all went gold.
There is a nice article written on newblackmaninexile.net which talks about the Legacy of Jerry Butler’s Songwriter’s Workshop – follow this link to read it.
The Callier / Wade duo scored a Top 20 hit for the Dells. It was called The Love We Had Stays On My Mind. Stepney was producing the Dells album Freedom Means and ended up using five Callier / Wade compositions.
Butler recalled . . .
Terry Callier and I were in grade school together. When he started at the Village Gate (in New York) and the Gate of Horn (in Chicago), we were about the same age. He was doing the folk thing and I was doing the doo-wop with Curtis.
Ice Man
After Vee-Jay records hit bankruptcy in 1966 Jerry Butler signed with Mercury Records. It was here that he had his biggest successes with 1969’s Only The Strong Survive”and 1968’s Hey Western Union Man.
Jerry Butler had earned the nickname ‘The Ice Man’ . . .
We formed Ice Man Music, a publishing house, right after I finished the ‘Ice Man Cometh’ album with (Kenny) Gamble and (Leon) Huff (in November, 1968), they decided they were going to start their own label.
But Jerry was still under contract with Mercury . . .
I knew I couldn’t write enough good songs in a year to make up four albums, which is what the Mercury contract called for, so I got the idea to start the workshop. We wanted to turn the workshop into a mini-Motown for Chicago. We got the publishing end of it right but never could get the music right in terms of records and distribution. I called Terry as one of the first guys because I knew what a great songwriter he was. He and Larry Wade came over to the workshop.
With funding from North American Philips, Jerry’s workshop was brought together. Situated on the top floor of an old record distributor building at 1402 S. Michigan.
By 1972 Butler’s hothouse of musical talent was generating $4 million in record sales and had produced numerous chart singles recorded by the likes of Isaac Hayes, Aretha Franklin and The Dells. The smash hit The Love We Had Stays on My Mind was penned by the Callier / Wade partnership and became a huge hit for The Dells. It also teamed Terry with his old friend George Stepney, who was now working as a producer for the Chess subsidiary Cadet.
Unfortunately there is very little written about Terry Calliers song writing partner Larry Wade. He did spend some time in the vocal soul band Infinity. The band was formed in the late 60’s by Billy Butler and consisted of Larry Wade, Phyllis Knotts and Errol Bank. Find Larry Wade’s full discography here. If you have some information on Larry Wade please contact me, thank you in advance.
Added 17th January 2021 – I was contacted by the talented muscian, and friend of Terry Callier, Eric Hochberg. Eric had some extra information on Terry Callier and Larry Wade.
Eric Hochberg
I saw Larry Wade from time to time over the years, mainly at our gigs in Chicago. I know he was working as a security guard in the mid 2000’s. The last time I saw him was at the Terry Callier street naming ceremony and he seemed good. I don’t know if he is still active in music
Eric has been a mainstay of the Chicago music scene for more than forty years, he has lent his bass work, both upright and electric, and an occasional trumpet, keyboard and vocal lick to a variety of projects across the realms of jazz, blues, folk, and much more. He has toured nationally/internationally with the Lyle Mays Quartet, the Terry Callier Group, the Paul Wertico Trio, the Kurt Elling Quartet, Ken Nordine’s Word Jazz, the Howard Levy Quartet and the Grazyna Auguscik Quintet.
Eric Hochberg played on these Terry Callier releases :
You can find more information on Eric Hochberg here erichochberg.com
Cadet
While working on the Dells album Stepney asked Terry if he had anything he wanted to record himself. This lead to Terry’s Occasional Rain album the first of the three he would cut for Cadet.
In 1973, the Callier / Stepney partnership worked on a sound that fused folk with jazz and produced three albums in quick succession: Occasional Rain (1972), What Color Is Love? (1972), and I Just Can’t Help Myself (1973).
These three albums remain the bedrock of the sweet spiritual sound that became synonymous with Callier and contain some of his greatest musical achievements including the tone poem Ordinary Joe and the passion play Dancing Girl.
No Ordinary Joe
If Terry Callier had a theme tune, it was Ordinary Joe, a slice of sunkissed, blue-eyed soul and a highlight of 1972’s self penned Occasional Rain album. It was again produced by Charles Stepney, and featured session musicians Leonard Pirani, Sydney Simms and Bob Crowder, plus backing singers Kitty Haywood, Shirley Wahls and the mighty Minnie Riperton.
What Color Is Love?
Callier and Stepney was working on the second album for Chess – What Colour Is Love? It was planned to be a double album and Terry was just adding the finishing touches when Chess was sold to pop oriented GRT, and the double album was shelved and just seven tracks were chosen.
What Color Is Love? was again blessed with some wonderful production by Stepney. The first three tracks set the scene, the kaleidoscopic Dancing Girl, followed by the soul-stirring title track and then the mighty You Goin’ Miss Your Candyman, a song which really comes into it’s own with astonishing percussion by Alfred Nalls, Fred Walker, Donny Simmons, Morris Jennings and Bobby Christian, backed with a horn section featuring Ethel Merker, Paul Tervelt, Donald Myrick, Arthur Hoyle, and John Howell, it also has Phil Upchurch on guitar.
For the 1973 release of I Just Can’t Help Myself Elektra proudly boasted Callier as the new Marvin Gaye. A jazz led album featuring two tracks that had been recorded in 1969, the John Coltrane tribute Can’t Catch The Trane, and Alley-Wind Song. Also featured a rendition of Duke Ellington’s Satin Doll.
I wanted to take guys who were professional writers but who for some reason had never been recognized because they had to do other jobs. Terry was driving a cab at the time, trying to put his daughter through school at the University of Chicago. Then he became a computer analyst. He was always the egghead kind of guy. One of the smartest people I ever met.
Unfortunately the critical appreciation for Callier’s talent was not met with equal commercial success.
The Jerry Butler Songwriters Workshop disbanded in 1976, Terry had spent the best part of six years there, six years he described as the most instructive, beautiful, enlightening times of my life.
The workshop gave me a chance to really concentrate on writing and get inside the craft.
He left Cadet in 1977, and moved to Elektra to work with Don Mizell.
Elektra years
It was here Callier produced what people consider his soul period albums, Fire on Ice (1978) and Turn You To Love (1979). Neither achieved the commercial success his new label wanted.
The same year Mizell, the man who championed Callier, left the company, and Elektra abandoned Terry, he was released from the label. He was now without a contract.
Family man
Callier continued to work the circuits of Washington DC, Detroit and Philadelphia ann 1982 he recorded the single I Don’t Want to See Myself (Without You) / If I Could Make You (Change Your Mind) for Erect Records.
Nothing happened with the release and Terry disappeared from the music scene, a decision not born of frustration but precipitated by a desire to support his daughter.
In 1983 he received a phone call from his 12-year-old daughter, Sundiata, who every one called Sunny.
My daughter was starting high school, and there are certain things a young woman needs.
There was no way I was going to provide those things unless I went out on the road and stayed there, but then I wouldn’t have been around for her.
I felt I owed her that. When her mom and I originally got divorced, I was younger and dumber and I didn’t give much thought to Sundiata’s feelings. I felt, As an artist I’m due this and that, and all the rest of the load that you carry around with you in your late 20s.
So this gave me a chance to show her that she was important, and that her dad cared about her.
So Callier moved back home to live with his mother and with him was his daughter, Sunny.
Back to school
Terry walked away from the music business. He pursued a degree in sociology and took a computer programming course. He landed a job at the University of Chicago’s National Opinion Research Center.
Callier was so busy with life, he didn’t have time to pick up a guitar, he was going to school and working full time, and looking after his daughter. But by 1988, he had completed his degree in sociology at North Park College, realigned his life and picked up his guitar again. Practicing in the bathroom at home, where Terry said the acoustics sounded real good.
A reminder of his days learning his craft and practicing in the college bathrooms.
I didn’t touch a guitar from 1983 until 1988 because I was just too busy. Then in 1991 I got a call from a guy in London called Eddie Pillar, who ran a label called Acid Jazz. He told me that he had been playing my records in clubs and he wanted to re-release them and get me playing in England again. So for the next few years, I came over to do gigs in London in my vacation time from my day job.
Like Lazarus Man
The last studio material by Terry was a twelve inch released in 1982 on small independent Indiana label called Erect Records. I Don’t Want To See Myself (Without You) was backed with If I Could Make You (Change Your Mind).
Eventually this twelve was picked up by the UK jazz dance scene. It was getting regular play and an incredible reaction when Dr Bob Jones starting dropping it at a club called Special Branch in 1986.
Eddie Piller, of Acid Jazz records, decided he wanted to re-issue the twelve, so he decided to try and track Terry Callier down.
Acid Jazz Detective
On making enquiries Piller hit a brick wall. He tried Callier’s collaborator and first publisher, Jerry Butler, but by this time Cadet had moved from Chicago to LA. This was pre-internet so Piller persevered and spent a month ringing the different phone companies that made up American directory enquiries. An hour each day after work on the phone asking them to search for every Terrence Orlando Callier in their books. An address in a Chicago suburb looked promising. But when he phoned the number a young girl answered and said no one called Terry lived at that address. He phoned again the next day, and the day after that until eventually the teenage girl on the other end handed the phone to her father.
A very quiet, laid-back voice spoke . . .
I’m Terry Callier – and my daughter says that unless I speak to you, you are probably going to ring every day for the rest of our lives. What is it you want?
As an additional bit of info Dr Bob Jones became in-house DJ for Terry Callier on his comeback UK tours. So things went full circle.
Finally the connection was made, but Callier was skeptical.
It’s important to note that at this point, Gilles Peterson had left Acid Jazz and set up a label of his own, Talkin’ Loud Records, which was a supported by the financial weight of PolyGram.
Eddie Piller spoke of the split . . .
It gave me a free hand to do more of what I wanted. Me and Gilles had brilliant chemistry, but we didn’t really agree on what we wanted to release. So I thought, ‘Well I’m going to have to make some kind of a splash now, cos Talkin’ Loud’s got massive budgets.
Piller’s pursuit of Callier gave Acid Jazz the break out hit it was looking for and in turn brought Terry to a much wider audience.
Piller . . .
Terry was the most spiritual person I’d ever come across. Very quiet, shy, humble. He had not had a good time in music, but once he came to the UK and saw the passion and obsession that British kids had for him – which he had no idea about, like so many black Americans who come here to perform totally unaware that they are cultural icons – it blew him away.
Terry remembers . . .
I got a call from Eddie Piller, chairman of Acid Jazz Records in the UK, who said it was getting played in the clubs and getting a fantastic reaction.
On the phone Piller tried to convince Callier to let him re-issue the tracks and to book some live performances to promote it. Terry explained that he had given up music in 1983 for family reasons. That he wanted to bring his daughter up properly, and that he felt being on the road was not the right way to do so.
100 Club
Eddie Piller eventually persuaded Callier to come to the UK on holiday, and that Acid Jazz would get a band together and put on a small gig at the 100 Club in London. Terry reluctantly said yes. Piller then got him to agree that if he enjoyed it, he would allow Acid Jazz to re-issue the record.
Two legendary comeback gigs at the 100 Club and a performance at the Great Yarmouth Music Festival lit the fire under Callier’s career and it was time to hit the road again.
Acid Jazz had given Terry a new audience and a platform on which to move forward. Sales of the re-issue hit 10,000 copies, the original release had sold only 200 copies when it first came out.
Ever grateful to Piller for tracking him down, and kick starting this new phase in his career, Terry was keen to do more.
Talkin’ Loud
Terry eventually hooked up with the ex Acid Jazz partner Gilles Peterson, and Talkin’ Loud Records released the Terry Callier comeback album TimePeace.
Callier had to cut ‘TimePeace’ on his weekends, due to his work obligations. Taking holiday time out of work, he travelled to London to record with his UK backing band.
Added 17 January 2021 – Eric Hochberg points out that TimePeace was a 3/4 Chicago based project, nine of the twelve tunes were recorded in Chicago with musicians that Eric had put together for Terry. Three tunes featured London musicians.
Most of the songs on the album were new compositions. Java Sparrow, a song which was inspired by a colourful bird that Callier and his daughter used to visit at Chicago’s Lincoln Park Zoo. The lyrics of the album continue Calliers previous concerns with the human condition and as his own interaction with society.
United Nations’ Time For Peace Award
The album achieved great reviews and commercial success. In 1998 Timepeace received the United Nations’ Time For Peace Award for Outstanding Artistic Achievement.
Bittersweet
Due to receiving this accolade his employers at the University of Chicago finally learned about Calliers double life. After picking up the award in New York, he came into work only to discover that he had four hours to clear his desk, he had been fired.
Callier started dividing his time between his home in America and touring the UK.
Russ Dewbury
Russ had been a big part of the UK Jazz scene with his popular clubs the Jazz Rooms and Jazz Bop.
His friend Gilles Peterson had set up BGP Records, with another longtime friend of Russ’ Baz Fe Jazz. The label was owned by Ace Records and through his connection with Baz Russ got to know the people from Ace. Russ had begun to hit the ceiling with where he could take Jazz Bop. When Baz decided to leave BGP they asked Russ take over the running of the label.
Russ Dewbury now had access to an incredible back catalogue of music that he could re issue.
Russ as BGP set about re issuing Terry Callier’s debut The New Folk Sound of Terry Callier. To celebrate the re issue they brought Terry back over to the UK.
It worked so well I actually put together an all star band of artists I’d worked with on BGP and we toured Europe for 2 weeks! It was the Make Way for the Originals tour of 1994 and it was an unforgettable experience. The band included Idris Muhammad, Pucho, Reuben Wilson, Johnny Lytle, Melvin Sparks and others.
I financed the whole thing myself and we took a tour bus and went round Europe, it was like the Spinal Tap of the black music scene! Such a shame we didn’t take a camera crew.
There is an interesting article which features an interview with Terry Callier when he came over to play Russ Dewbury’s Jazz Bop at the Forum in Kentish Town. It was written by Susy Marriott for ukvibe issue 14 1995. http://ukvibe.org/archive
Beth Orton
There is a lovely article published in the Independent – How We Met: Terry Callier & Beth Orton – Sunday 7 November 1999. This was around the time of the artists releasing their own albums;Central Reservation by Beth Orton and LifeTime by Terry Callier.
When they met Terry was 54, Beth Orton was 28, the same age as Callier’s daughter. Orton had almost become an actress but turned to folk music after a chance meeting with the producer William Orbit in 1993.
Terry talks about meeting Beth . . .
I met Beth in 1996 when she came up to me after one of my concerts. She told me she sang and that she would send me a copy of her CD. Sure enough it arrived, and I put it on. I was reading through the notes and I got to the part where she said she’d been listening to my album the New Folk Sound of Terry Callier. I thought, wow, because people often try to hide their influences. Listening to her, I knew that we had something in common. She had some heart that she was putting in the music. That’s all I ask from any artistic endeavour, whether it’s a novel or a movie or a song – as long as it’s got heart, I can deal with it.
Beth and I talked about recording the Fred Neill song “Dolphins”. When I ran away from home and went to New York, the first four people I met there were Fred Neill, Josh White Junior, David Crosby and Dino Valenti, who was later in the psychedelic band Quicksilver Messenger Service. Fred Neill had this big baritone voice but he had more feeling in his stuff than most of the folk singers and groups.
Beth Orton . . .
I first heard of Terry when someone gave me The New Folk Sound Of Terry Callier. I took it home and that was it – I listened to it constantly, it really captured what I was trying to do with acoustic music. Then a friend of mine took me to see him. The reason I got so close to that friend was because we both had this mission with Terry Callier. If you met someone who liked Terry Callier, you knew you’d get on.
The concert was at the Jazz Cafe and was completely uplifting and joyful. I met Terry afterwards and I said: “Hello, I’m Beth!” He gave me his autograph, and we started sending each other e-mails.
Then someone at my record label said that if I did a song with Terry, I should do ‘Dolphins’, by Fred Neill. It was all complete coincidence, just one of those mad things. I’m big into my little magic. Terry emulated Fred Neill when he was young, and I was emulating Terry and la di da, here we are.
When I put Terry’s music on, I’m grounded. That’s why I write songs, to feel connected to the earth, to something. I don’t like to be analysed but it’s a wonderful thing when you get things off your chest in a song. It’s a constant process of shedding, otherwise you go insane. My second album, Central Reservation, is like a floodgate. I can’t sing the songs I sing every night without addressing those questions to myself as much as they are to the audience. I’m also really hard on myself when I’m writing, I play with my own mind. I see strength in expressing how you feel, and I see strength in weakness, if weakness is being a decent person or having feelings, being alive. I feel that when I hear Terry’s music – his voice, his lyrics. It strikes a chord. His music and his friendship are like anchors in my life.
Read the full article on The Independents website by following this link https://www.independent.co.uk
Recordings
Between 1999 and 2009 Terry Callier recorded 6 more albums:
Gigs
Callier continued to play gigs in UK and in Europe, he also played the Montreux Jazz Festival, Switzerland in 2001. This was his first visit back since he played the Casino on Jul 21, 1979.
Here is the set list for both gigs :
Spiritual
His spiritually intense live performances moved people to tears. Callier himself could be overwhelmed while playing gigs, especially those at the Jazz Cafe, he told the New York Times in 1998 that a few times he had to stop shows because it was too ‘over the top emotionally’ to continue.
Any one who encountered Terry Callier in person or through his music, with it’s synthesis of folk, soul and jazz and superior song craftmanship, couldn’t help but be moved by his spirituality.
A long-time follower Naqshbandi-Haqqani Sufi Order of America, Callier tried to live his life by the purifying principles of Sufism. The mission of the Naqshbandiyya Nazimiyya Sufi Order is to spread the Sufi teachings of the brotherhood of mankind and the Unity of belief in God that is present in all religions and spiritual paths.
Terry Callier . . .
One of the Sufi masters once said that ‘the world shines so brightly that all the other lights seem dim.’ We have to constantly be reminded of the spiritual side of things because the material world is so in our face.
Passing
Callier continued to live in and around Chicago, living in Evanston for the last few years of his remarkable life. He continued to tour Europe regularly until he was diagnosed with throat cancer. He moved in with his daughter while he received treatment. But on Saturday October 27, 2012, in Saint Joseph Hospital, on North Lake Shore Drive, and just 18 months after his diagnosis, Terry Callier passed.
Sunny Callier said that her father was surrounded by family when he died.
He was just 67.
He is survived by his daughter . . .
He was loved all over the world. People are saying it’s a loss for everyone.
Remembered
Terry Callier never received the real acclaim he deserved, but nobody who heard him ever forgot the experience.
Chicago have now honoured Terry with naming a street after him. It was decided to name the 300-400 block of West Elm, which is a stones throw from N. Mohawk St, as Terrence Callier Way.
The wider musical audience was very slow to recognise his talent. But the lyrics to his debut Look At Me Now, which he recorded in 1963 at the tender age of just 17, do have a prophetic quality to them . . .
I’m going to make it some day,
I’m going to make it somehow,
Then I’ll be able to say,
People, look at me now, look at me now
Discography
Studio Albums
Live Albums
Singles
Compilation Albums
DVD & Video
References
http://ukvibe.org/archive/revibe/terry-callier_1995/
http://jazzusa.com/terry-callier-reluctant-musician/
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/entertainment-arts-20124594
https://ancienttofuture.com/2012/10/30/extrordinary-joe-terry-callier-passes-to-other-side/
https://www.theguardian.com/music/2012/oct/30/terry-callier
https://www.allmusic.com/artist/terry-callier-mn0000027916/biography
https://www.theguardian.com/music/2004/oct/15/folk.jazz
https://www.popmatters.com/terry-callier-new-folk-sound-2616461775.html?rebelltitem=3#rebelltitem3
http://www.premonitionrecords.com/common/press/tcallier/illinoisentertainer.html
https://dereksmusicblog.com/2011/06/28/terry-callier-timepeace/
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Terry_Callier
http://thegreatrockbible.com/portfolio-item/terry-callier-biography/
http://rogermcguinn.blogspot.com/2006/09/roadie-report-18-chad-mitchell-trio-by.html?m=1
https://www.esquire.com/entertainment/g14473188/new-york-greenwich-village-1960s-photos/
https://www.clashmusic.com/features/10-things-you-never-knew-about-terry-callier
https://www.behindthegroove.co.uk/russ-dewbury-jazzrooms-interview-pt-2
https://www.theguardian.com/music/2012/nov/01/acid-jazz-terry-callier
https://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/how-we-met-terry-callier-beth-orton-1124218.html
I hope I have been able to provide you with an enjoyable read, I have tried my hardest to find the truest account of Terry Callier’s life.
If you notice any errors please comment and I will do my best to rectify any mistakes.
A truly talented musician and it seems a wonderful man too. Rest in peace Mister Terrence Orlando Callier it is a pleasure to have your music in my life.
Music Is Love
All artwork on this page are owned by the artist who created them © No copyright infringement is intended
So today’s post is a bit special. It’s about two things most precious to me . . .
The music is one of my favourite song’s Wooden Ships and the art is the graphic short story drawn by Steve Leialoha.
The lyrics were adapted by Mike Friedrich. The pages were created in ink and Zipatone over graphite on Bristol board with an image area of 10″ x 15”.
Was born January 27, 1952 in San Francisco, California and his father was a Native Hawaiian. Leialoha began reading comic books at an early age.
Steve explained . . .
My dad would always give me comics. I mean, he would like to read all sorts of stuff, and he would pass everything along to me. Harvey comics and that kind of thing, when I was six or seven. As I got older, the Marvel Age, which I think of starting like in 1962, I was ten, which is certainly a good age for reading that stuff.
Steve Leialoha’s professional career began in 1975 with the early independent comic book Star*Reach, in issue #3 (Sept. 1975), drawing the five-page story entitled Wooden Ships on the Water.
A song written and composed by David Crosby, Paul Kantner, and Stephen Stills, in 1968 in Fort Lauderdale, Florida, on the schooner named Mayan, which was owned by Crosby, who composed the music, while Kantner and Stills wrote most of the lyrics.
It was at the height of the Vietnam War, and during the Cold War, the world seemed at the brink of an apocalyptic nuclear war.
The lyrics to the song depict the horrors confronting the survivors of a nuclear holocaust in which the two sides have annihilated each other.
The few survivors escaping on an uncontaminated wooden ship, as they try to escape and create a new civilisation.
If you smile at me, I will understand
Cause that is something everybody everywhere does
In the same language
I can see by your coat, my friend
You’re from the other side
There’s just one thing I got to know
Can you tell me please, who won?
Say, can I have some of your purple berries?
Yes, I’ve been eating them for six or seven weeks now
Haven’t got sick once
Probably keep us both alive
Wooden ships on the water, very free and easy
Easy, you know the way it’s supposed to be
Silver people on the shoreline, let us be
Talkin’ ’bout very free and easy
Horror grips us as we watch you die
All we can do is echo your anguished cries
Stare as all human feelings die
We are leaving, you don’t need us
Go, take your sister then, by the hand
Lead her away from this foreign land
Far away, where we might laugh again
We are leaving, you don’t need us
And it’s a fair wind blowin’ warm
Out of the south over my shoulder
Guess I’ll set a course and go
A man from one side stumbles upon a man (or woman, in the Jefferson Airplane version) from the other side and asks,
Can you tell me, please, who won?
Since the question is meaningless, after a nuclear holocaust, it is left unanswered.
The purple berries, mentioned in the lyrics, are thought to be iodine capsules, which protect against radioactive iodine-131 in nuclear fallout.
The silver people on the shoreline, are over survivors in radiation suits.
In the unsung prelude of the lyric sheet it says:
Black sails knifing through the pitchblende night
Away from the radioactive landmass madness
From the silver-suited people searching out
Uncontaminated food and shelter on the shores
No glowing metal on our ship of wood
Only free happy crazy people naked in the universe
Crosby recorded a solo demo version in March 1968, this demo had the melody but no lyrics. Stills recorded his own demo in April which had most of the lyrics in place.
Kantner could not be credited as one of the writers when it was released in May 1969, on the debut album by Crosby, Stills & Nash, because he was embroiled in legal disputes with the Jefferson Airplane then manager, Matthew Katz.
Kantner’s released a version with his band Jefferson Airplane in November 1969, on the album Volunteers. The two versions differ slightly in lyrics and melody.
Steve Leialoha continued to contribute to Star*Reach and the same publisher Quack for four years
After meeting Marvel writer Jim Starlin in Oakland, CA, Leialoha was offered the inker job on Warlock. Leialoha continued as a freelancer and a regular contributor to Marvel from 1976 to 1988, working on such series as Warlock, Star Wars, Spider-Woman, the Spider-Man title Marvel Team-Up, the Firestar limited series, New Mutants.
Impressed with his work on Warlock, Frank Brunner asked Leialoha to be the inker for Howard the Duck.
Leialoha continued his work with Marvel for the next several years.
He and writer J. M. DeMatteis co-created Greenberg the Vampire in Bizarre Adventures #29 (Dec. 1981).
In 1986, Leialoha started contributing cover art and guest inking for DC Comics. He went on to ink major comics such as Detective Comics and Chronos, and volumes of The Sandman Presents like Petrefax and The Dead Boy Detectives.
In the 1990s, he began working at DC Comics on Batman and other characters; at Harris Comics on Vampirella; and at Claypool Comics on Soulsearchers and Company.
In 2002, Vertigo started publishing Fables with Leialoha serving as the main inker for the entirety of the series through 2015.
He inked part of the World’s End story arc in Neil Gaiman’s The Sandman series. The following decade, he became the regular inker on most of the issues (through 2013) of the DC/Vertigo series Fables, penciled by Mark Buckingham, for which they won the Eisner Award for “Best Penciller/Inker Team” in 2007.
Leialoha currently resides in his birth place of San Francisco with his partner, the comics artist, Trina Robbins.
He played bass in a rock band, Seduction of the Innocent, with writer Max Allan Collins, writer/actor Bill Mumy, and actor Miguel Ferrer.
Writer Larry Hama named the G.I. Joe character Edward Leialoha (code name Torpedo) after Steve Leialoha.
I did a David Crosby mix which features a couple of different versions of Wooden Ships.
All artwork on this page are owned by the artist who created them © No copyright infringement is intended
Most knew it only as the weird music inbetwixt bands, others said it was a doorway to another dimension, and a few, well they just called it the Spreadalittlelove Sound System.
Playing to an unsuspecting, captive audience afforded them a marvellous opportunity to serve up whatever they liked – usually a heady brew of psychedelicrainbowsunshinepop, with the occasional drop of Disney poured into the mix for good measure.
Let’s start at the beginning well actually The Beginning Stages of…
The year 1990, and a neo-psychedelic pop rock band emerged from Dallas, Texas. And they called themselves Tripping Daisy.
At the helm was lead singer and guitarist Tim DeLaughter, he was joined by Jeff Bouck on percussion, Wes Berggren on guitar, and Mark Pirro on bass.
When playing live the band made use of a light show similar to the infamous Joshua Light Show used in the 1960’s and 70’s at the Fillmore East. It used hand made slide shows with multi layered projections along with oil wheels. This visual layering was present in their very first show and was the beginning of many multimedia attractions to come.
After a brief but highly acclaimed few years Tripping Daisy came to a tragic end. In 1999 guitarist Wes Berggren passed away much too soon and the band split.
But hey this isn’t a post about Trippy Daisy, no, it’s a post about what happened next…
There is an interview in Rolling Stone magazine from 2002 where Tim explains the beginning of the band.
I think it started when I was a little kid. I had my first band in third grade, and I’ve always been drawn to sunny pop music. The first record I ever bought was a 45, Beach Baby by First Class. I’m thirty-six years old now, I spent twelve years in a pop band and I’m at a point in my life where I thought I could do my be careful what you wish for band.
The Polyphonic Spree’s music fulfills everything that I need: It’s very sunny, it’s positive, there’s a lot of melody all over it and the texture of the different instruments is layered — from the smaller sound of the flute to the broader sound of the trombone, to the tympanis to the chimes. And then, of course, the ten-to-twelve-person choir.
Actually — and people in the band would scream if they knew this — I’m adding a tuba and a classical harp player. Once I get those two I think I’ll be completely satisfied.
So Tim DeLaughter brought together 12 musicians and set about giving birth to the sound he heard in his head.
Tim’s wife Julie Doyle remembers being in their bedroom…
we have a pretty small house so you can hear pretty easily, lying on my back with the baby and hearing Tim in the living room with a couple string players and a harpist laying down these real basic chords on the acoustic guitar. He was telling them, “Don’t worry about the sheet music, just improv with your ear.” I was thinking, Oh my god, this is gonna be outstanding! So we started calling more friends over
The full interview can be read at rollingstone.com
So began an exploration of the orchestral palette with included a pop sensibility. Within a couple of weeks, The Polyphonic Spree created a 30-minute opus, they then donned their signature white robes and greeted the world.
Michael Turner from the choir explains the robes
It’s really just to unify the band visually so that you’re not distracted. Some people would say that’s kind of contradictory: “What do you mean it’s not distracting . . . all those robes?” But it’s an initial thing: When the music starts, you quit paying attention to them. You’re not thinking, “That guy’s got a cool belt on” … or “I hate that shirt!”
In another interview from The Guardian in 2002 Tim also addresses the robe and cult issue, let’s face it, seeing 24 people in white robes is reminiscence of Father Yod’s Source Family spiritual commune/cult based in the Hollywood Hills in the early seventies. I love the fact Tim is obviously being playful but soon realises it can be taken out of context.
Alexis Petridis – This sort of talk brings us to the religious cult issue. DeLaughter says the robes are simply “a fitting uniform” and that it would be too confusing if 24 people came onstage wearing normal clothes.
I swear to God, I didn’t think about it as a religious thing or a cult thing. Now, I go back to England and everybody’s talking about it as being a cult. There again, 10 years from now, you may find out that we are a fuckin’ cult! Everyone may be dead, I may have poisoned them all
There’s a pause, Tim adds, concerned;
That’s definitely not on the cards. I’m not planning on that
Well that was 17 years ago and the Spree didn’t end up like some Sunshine Pop version of Jonestown.
So the back to the first gig, The Polyphonic Spree began July 15, 2000 with an opening slot for Grandaddy and Bright Eyes in Dallas, TX.
And shortly after this show the band added more musicians.
Then, they set about recording something.
The initial recording contained nine sections which and been performed at their first show plus one more; Section 10 – Long Day. This promo CD was only intended to serve as a demo recording to help get the band live bookings but things started to move quickly.
The promo disc was entitled The Beginning Stages of…
Originally released as a CDr under the bands own name. It was then released again on Good Records Recordings. The record label formed by Tim DeLaughter and Chris ‘CeePee’ Penn, the label named after the record store they owned and ran in downtown Dallas, Texas.
Good Records was then a small struggling record shop but is now much more.
Tim recently said in an interview with Diffuser.FM
Chris Penn was the heart and soul of Good Records. He’s the one that’s made it what it is. We’ve had some amazing in-store performances at our place, and some unforgettable moments. Just awesome times. It’s great. It’s totally Chris Penn who has made Good Records what it is
The promotional CD, numbered at 100, was given out at the original shows.
It was engineered and recorded by Andy Baker at the Dallas Sound Lab. Mixed at Last Beat Studios with the assistance of Paul Williams. Mastered by George Geurin at DES.
The twenty piece choral symphonic pop band featured;
Todd Berridge – viola
Jeff Bouck – percussion, car tailpipes, tablas, timpani drums, gong
Chris Curiel – trumpet
Tim DeLaughter – vocals, guitar, arm waving
Audrey Easley – flute, piccolo
Carlos Jackson – farrista, bells, tambourine
Maria Jeffers – cello
Mark McKeever – keyboard, piano, moog, trumpet
Mark Pirro – Bass
Andrew Tinker – french horn
Bryan Wakeland – trap set
And the choir:
Jessica Berridge, Austen Brown, Julie Doyle, Toby Halbrooks, Jesse Hester, Roy Ivy, Jennifer Jobe, Jennie Kelley, Kelly Repka, Christy Stewart
The Beginning Stages is a 3 day (Oct 29, 30, 31, 2000) documentation of a sound that is to come.
In 2002 the band was invited to play the South by Southwest music festival in Austin, Texas. They had actually been turned down the year before. On March 14, 2002 the band kicked off the event by opening for the keynote speech by Robbie Robertson.
The band performed 5 shows in 3 days at a time when that was not the norm. The band also did an in-store performance at Waterloo Records.
Interest was beginning to peek and the band sold a lot of CDS during SXSW, the only artist who sold more was a then unknown Norah Jones.
At Stubb’s Bar-B-Q on Saturday March 16th they played the following set;
The band began to receive a lot more attention from both press and industry.
David Bowie invited the band to perform at the Meltdown Festival he was curating, and so The Polyphonic Spree made their first trip over the ocean and on Monday, June 17, 2002 they opened for The Divine Comedy at the Royal Festival Hall.
The Spree played a cover of Bowie’s Five Years. Momentum had started to build.
Jumping forward to 2003 for a just moment Light and Day / Reach For the Sun had been used in a joint Volkswagen Beetle / Apple iPod advertising campaign.
The band also had a cameo in an episode of the TV series Scrubs.
They also had music played in a NFL football preseason special to Bill Walsh. Music also appeared in Murderball, a documentary about the U.S. wheelchair rugby team. And the BBC Radio 7 sci-fi comedy Undone.
And Light and Day / Reach For the Sun was adapted and used in the movie Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind.
A little later in 2005 Light and Day started to be used in a series of UK television adverts for the supermarket chain Sainsbury’s.
Let’s head back to 2003…
The band was then invited to be the opening act on theUS leg of his 2003 David Bowie’s Reality Tour.
Chris Penn was tour manager and co-manager of the band he was over the moon, The Polyphonic Spree were to open for an icon for a whole month on an arena tour.
Penn’s favorite moment happened backstage.
I went to retrieve Tim for some press or something and walked into Tim and David conversing about artists and how they release albums that fly under the radar and/or experimental albums that they know will alienate a good chunk of their audience. Neil Young came up and Tim told David Bowie he should talk to me because ‘he loves Neil Young.’ So for a brief moment I got to talk to David Bowie about our mutual admiration for Neil Young and his do-what-you-want attitude
The band continued to tour the globe with tours in Japan, Australia, and Europe.
And in 2004 back in Dallas the band found time to record a second album Together We’re Heavy.
They used producer Eric Drew Feldman who had previously worked on Tripping Daisy’s – Jesus Hits Like The Atom Bomb.
Hang on a minute, we did jump the gun. Let’s go back to October 2002 and The Polyphonic Spree were now touring the UK and had arrived, with much anticipation, at the Roadmenders in Northampton.
Now I had been playing support for a lot of bands at the Roadmenders. Playing records before bands was my thing and I had a pretty regularly Wednesday night slot where I met and played for a lot of great and not so great up and coming bands that you’d read about in the Melody Maker or NME.
I was booked to play for The Polyphonic Spree on October 25th but due to the complicated nature of managing a 24 piece band things got well and truly cocked up and I was at the gig that night but only as another fan.
I was blown away and vowed to get a support slot next time they played.
I didn’t have to wait that long…
So it’s July the start of the Summer in the UK and the Spree are touring again. And this time I get the support slot. Yay! for me.
I invited my long standing brother in record arms Dixy to play back to back, one deck each, battle mode is what we called it, this made us push each other as far as we could musically and we used to have a ball.
We were billed as Blackcatfound a name we were using at the time around our hometown. Although Blackcatfound was a three piece at the time it was only myself and Dixy who played. This would become a huge problem and eventually caused the trio Blackcatfound, consisting of Gay Roger, Dixy and pH to implode and I left the trio. This was all very sad but we all lived.
So the dynamic duo played a set of favourite feel good and sunshine pop records, with a smile on our faces. The sun was out that day and shone down on Northampton illuminating the Roadmenders in all it’s tatty glory.
Sitting on a step at the back of the venue was one Tim DeLaughter, enjoying the sunshine and having a rest before going on stage. His ears pricked up by the joyful sounds coming from inside the venue. The crowd were buoyant and singing along to the music that was being played. But by whom he thought to himself. He went inside to investigate.
Our vinyl boxes were over flowing and the set could have contained any of the following that night:
Tim pushed his way through the sold out crowd and arrived at two very happy and slightly wobbly DJ’s. He didn’t say much at first he looked over with a Cheshire smile and bear hugged us one at a time.
And like a happy principal telling off some naughty school kids he told us to see him after the show.
And our journey had began.
We spoke to the tour manager, Chris Penn after the show and he told us we were going on tour with them. And that was that. Our next gig was supporting them at the Edinburgh Corn Exchange on 24th August to a 3000 sold out crowd.
We needed a new name, a special name just for the gigs with The Polyphonic Spree. We were to become their sound system, and our role was to spread a little love.
So the newly christened Spreadalittlelove Sound System flew to Edinburgh on Easy Jet and before the gig we got drunk on cheap Cava, and searched the local record shops for vinyl, all in the blazing sunshine and tingling with anticipation at the night ahead.
The whole night went wonderfully, except the bit when the support band from Liverpool, can’t remember their name, started having a go at the headliners that night. The sold out crowd were there for the Spree and booed the support band off stage. It really did get nasty at one point and we thought Tim was going to get physically and kick the support band off stage himself.
We built up the crowd again with sunshine and the Spree came on and stole the show.
After the gig everyone was still excited and we got pushed into a minibus and driven to a bar somewhere in Edinburgh, the resident DJ was asked to go home early and myself and Dixy were plopped behind the decks, and played until 4am on a bag of records only picked for a 1 hour support set, it was madness but somehow we pulled it off.
So here are the dates we became The Polyphonic Spree’s Tour DJ’s.
As mentioned already after the initial gig as Blackcatfound we called ourselves the Spreadalittlelove Sound System.
Then after a backlash from the NME about hippies and sixties throwbacks we got asked to change the name, so we came up with The Celestial Peepshow. Me and Dixy had also started DJing as Blackcandy so we were billed as that a few times.
Eventually Dixy left for the bright lights of New York City and I became the UK tour DJ for the band all on my own.
And so, in the winter of 2003 our journey took us to Fort Worth airport on the outskirts of Dallas.
Our party of five Northamptonians had arrived for the Annual Holiday Extravaganza at the Lakewood Theatre. We were booked to play a support set for both of the nights.
We were joined on both nights by a small zoo, a surreal ventriloquist, and the lovely Trachtenburg Family Slideshow Players.
A possible highlight amongst many was Dixy dressed up in a full Rudolph the Reindeer costume dancing with Tim on stage. I have no photos of this unfortunately. It was back when you didn’t carry a mobile phone everywhere, taking photos of everything, we were just lost in the moment.
This was the last gig as a duo. Dixy left for New York and for all following gigs I was on my own. I think I may have been billed as pH Folk Funk & Trippy Troubadours
Myself and Dixy gave an interview in 2004 for the local BBC Weekender program, you can hear us in the clip below…
After the gigs in 2015 I put together a mix for Mixcloud from the vinyl I had in my box for those gigs…
The old website is long gone but here are some screen grabs…
It was a lot of fun. We met some lovely people on our journey. The ever lovely Chris Penn kept us safe and gave us hugs.
People who always made us feel part of the Polyphonic Spree family; Ricky Rasura, Rick Nelson, Big Joseph Butcher, James Reimer, Bryan Wakeland, and Julie Doyle.
We played some great places too. I will never forget the sight of Har Mar Superstar walking down the stairs backstage at one of my favourite venues the Shepherds Bush Empire, he was wearing nothing but yellow Speedo’s and a beautiful woman on each arm.
Good times x
One of the many stage names myself and Dixy used was Uncle Seltzers Kosmik Surgery. Here Tim poses with a poster…
Over the course of touring The Polyphonic Spree played pretty much every major festival going; Bonnaroo, Coachella, Austin City Limits Festival, SXSW, Glastonbury, Reading, the list goes on.
The band also graced the small screen via the MTV Video Music Awards, Nobel Peace Prize Concert, Conan O’Brien, Jimmy Kimmel, Jay Leno, Craig Kilborn, Austin City Limits, Las Vegas, et. al.
Tim scored music for film, including Thumbsucker (2005), and Visioneers (2008), and the Emmy nominated theme song to the Showtime series United States of Tara (2009).
In 2007 the third studio album was recorded, The Fragile Army. They recorded in Cannon Falls, MN and Chicago, IL with John Congleton producing. The record was rockier than the sunshine of previous albums and the band switched from the trademark unifying robes to a black military style uniform.
Unfortunately the record company TVT who released The Fragile Army filed for bankruptcy not long after its release.
Tim DeLaughter put the band on a hiatus while writing and demoing new songs.
The live Christmas album Holidaydream: Sounds of the Holidays, Vol. One was released in 2012 by Good Records with distribution taken by Kirtland (North America) and Cherry Red (Europe)
The fourth studio album, Yes, It’s True, was released in 2013 again by Good Records with distribution taken by Kirtland (North America) and Cherry Red (Europe)
A 10 track remix album on Good Records Recordings appeared in 2014 called Psychphonic.
Logistics and the financial implications of moving a large band on the road meant that Tim and his merry pranksters didn’t come back to the UK very often.
As of writing this post the Spree have 2 shows lined up for 2019.
17 Feb 2019 at the Granada Theater, Dallas. Tim Delaughter presents the Woodrowphonic Spree, Tim performing The Polyphonic Spree’s greatest hits backed by the Woodrow Wilson High School Symphonic Wildcat Band.
And the Annual Holiday Extravaganza is taking place at Majestic Theatre, Dallas on Dec 14th.
The Polyphonic Spree moves forward on its path…
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So I just heard a track by called Again by Tenesha The Wordsmith, a poet out of Oakland, California. Who’s love for poetry and music was born through her life in Oakland, Ca and the unique rhythm of the San Francisco Bay Area. Blending music and poetry is Tenesha’s way of paying tribute to the Bay Area. A place filled with art, music and romance.
So I got on the old interweb searchy box and found the Bandcamp page for On The Corner Records, where my eyes were as visually stimulated as my ears. The most wonderful artwork adorned the Bandcamp page and I needed to know who was responsible for such wonderment.
Victoria Topping is an artist and illustrator.
Graduating from UWE Bristol University in 2008 with a 1st Class BA(Hons) in Illustration.
Her work is heavily influenced by music, from the styling and art direction of 1970’s Jazz and Soul to the passion and ebullience of Gospel and Disco.
She takes musical aspects and synthesises them into visual forms, working towards distilling the vibrancy of music into a ‘music for the eyes’. Each work has its own unique soul, through harnessing a blend of spirituality, culture, the cosmos and mother earth.
Her pieces are created through building up multiple textures and images and combining these to develop a distinct visual language, using recurring motifs.
A fusion of technology and traditional techniques – often using photography, painting, gold-leafing and cut up collage which is then digitally scanned and arranged on the computer, manipulating the artwork agin and then producing print ready digital artwork.
Recently her output has expanded to include work in different media; large scale oil paintings, and one-off textured collages.
As well as producing original art work and prints, Victoria is the Artist Director of On The Corner Records where she undertakes all the visual side of the label producing stunning sleeve design and imagery.
She has also worked with Art Yard Records.
Victoria has created commercial work for brand identities; produce branding for festivals; large scale murals and nightclub interiors. As well as hand-embellished prints, personal and commercial commissions, cards, slipmatts and wallpaper
Check out more of Victoria Toppings work on her site
All artwork on this page are owned by the artist who created them © No copyright infringement is intended
In another life I was an Art Director. As with most Art Directors I always fancied being behind the camera taking the shots as well as directing the shoot.
When ever I took my old Pentax out I would always prefer reportage shots and not staged wooden ones with wonky smiles and awkward poses.
I stumbled on the film Everybody Street. I’d never heard of it before I saw it and didn’t know what to expect. So there I was, in the flat on a gray day in March, a dull day sandwiched with a glipse of early Summer, watching this film.
Everybody Street illuminates the lives and work of New York’s iconic street photographers and the incomparable city that has inspired them for decades. The documentary pays tribute to the spirit of street photography through a cinematic exploration of New York City, and captures the visceral rush, singular perseverance and at times immediate danger customary to these artists.
Featured Photographers
Bruce Davidson, Elliott Erwitt, Jill Freedman, Bruce Gilden, Joel Meyerowitz, Rebecca Lepkoff, Mary Ellen Mark, Jeff Mermelstein, Clayton Patterson, Ricky Powell, Jamel Shabazz, Martha Cooper, and Boogie, with historians Max Kozloff and Luc Sante.
Directed by New York photographer Cheryl Dunn, the film puts aside the concept that there is but one type of approach to street photography and reveals that the city as a subject can be rendered in myriad of engaging ways.
Though conversations with legends of the genre, the film glimpses into the world of lesser known photographers it provides some interesting counterpoints to the iconic figures which often represent New York street photography.
Please check out the films website at everybodystreet.net
© I claim no credit for any images used in this blog post, unless otherwise noted. If there is an image appearing on this blog that belongs to you and you do not wish for it appear on this site, please do get in contact, send me a link to the image and I will promptly remove. All artwork on this page are owned by the artist who created them. No copyright infringement is intended
.
Begin…
A story, which starts, for me, with hearing a John Denver cover version from a giveaway Christmas vinyl, bumping shoulders with Country Joe & The Fish and the Beach Boys, the inventor of the Orban Optimod 8100, a highly regarded New Age graphic artist, a Hawaiian musician/coffee farmer, and some wonderful music from the late 60s/early 70s which are now finding some deserved time in the sun and a hopeful a reissue coming soon.
I stumbled into this story after hearing a piece of music that just made me want to find out more. The track, a cover version of ‘Leaving on a Jet Plane’ which had the name Chet Gardiner attached to it.
I type C H E T G A R D I N E R into the interweb and sat back. What would appear…
Welcome to Chet Gardiner’s Music
This has to be the guy, right?
Okay, let’s click on the ‘about me’ section;
From Rock and Roll lead guitar in the 1960s, acoustic lead and rhythm from the 60s to the present, Folk, Rock, Gospel and Blues bass from the 70s to the present, Chet has been there through it all and, like some curmudgeonly Energizer Bunny, is still rockin’ on. Chet is also a seasoned recording engineer, sound man and CD producer.
Cool. I pop open my web message portal and type “Hi. Are you the Chet Gardiner who performed on the wonderful version of ‘Jet Plane’ I just heard?”
What came back surprised me. A wonderfully excited and friendly reply from Hawaii, and the whole story started to unfold.
So get yourself comfy. Ditch the dodgy free cushions that you get on long-haul flights and grab your favourite travel pillow. Lean your chair slightly back. Headphones in. Get ready to journey First Class…
Redwood City hills
A party. Redwood City hills on the S.F. Peninsula in 1969. Chet Gardiner meets and jams with a guy named Bob Orban. Things sound good and the two want to record together. Orban just happens to have a bunch of professional recording gear but no room to set up so they decide to set up in Gardiner’s basement.
A high end ragtag ‘home studio’ was assembled in that basement that included a 4 track Ampex AG-300 tape recorder (pulling 1/2″ tape), three Dolby A-301 noise reduction units, several incredible Neumann microphones; two U47s and three U67s, a Metrotech 500R 2-track 1⁄4” recorder for mixdown. There was also two input board/mixers that Orban built, one three-track with high-headroom mic preamps, and one 12-in/8-bus out for mixdown. (Bob needed more than 2-channel output from the mixdown mixer because it’s extra busses were used to drive an Orban/Parasound 300B Stereo Matrix, a spatializing processor that increases the apparent width of tracks originally recorded monophonically.)
We are talking about THE Robert Orban here
The guy who not long after this meeting founded Orban Associates, Inc. and introduced the world to his audio processors, including OPTIMOD-FM processors, which are among the most widely used FM processors in the world
In college Bob had originally built the three-track mixer from scratch, including metalwork that he created in the physics department’s machine shop. It served as the heart of a custom remote recording setup that Bob used to make extra cash for college expenses.
The combination of mic pre-amps that could take the output of the Neumann mics, closed-miking a drum kit without distorting and Dolby noise reduction on the multi-track and two-track mix-down tapes resulted in a very clean sound by the standards of the era.
This 4-track basement setup was used one afternoon by Chet and his brother Steve to record the basic tracks that included Steve’s lead vocal and 12-string rhythm guitar and Chet’s bass track on ‘Leaving on a Jet Plane’.
Shortly after that session, Bob rented a house in Menlo Park California.
Surf’s Up
For several months Bob Orban had rented his collection of (very expensive) Dolby-A noise reduction processors to the Beach Boys who used them to do the Quadraphonic mixes of ‘Surf’s Up’!
Studio upgrade
Bob and Chet assembled a recording studio in the living room of that house that included an upgrade to a 3M 8-track tape recorder and a stereo synthesizer based mixer. There were many pieces of one-of-a-kind outboard gear that Orban designed and built including a spring reverb with extended high-frequency response. This was used to record additional instruments and mix the final 8 track recording of ‘Jet Plane’.
The track was then sweetened by Chet adding harmony vocals to his brother Steve’s lead vocal. Steve was a folk singer in Washington, DC in the early 60s. They also added Bob’s Steinway, Farfisa and Hammond B3 organs added to the Fender Jazz Bass. Some Moog, Martin 000-28 acoustic guitar and whatever else happened to be lying around in the studio at the time was also used on the recording.
Chet Gardiner
It was just a studio project that Bob and I did. We never gigged together although I was gigging with a number of other bands around that time…
Chicken Hirsch
A drummer was needed. Introducing Chicken Hirsch, he of Country Joe and the Fish.
Hirsch was set up in Bob’s living room studio and a play back of the first song for the session began. Hirsch listened for a bit, then took off his headphones and asked us,
“Did you guys use a ‘click track’ ?”
Bob and Chet looked at each other and replied;
“What’s a ‘click track’ ?”
Hirsch soldiered through and did a rather good job of adding the percussion.
Beaver & Krause
Bob then went out and, and on the advice of Bernie Krause and Paul Beaver (two of whose early-70s Warner Bros. synth-oriented albums he mixed), purchased a Billotti Trinome (a fancy metronome that could lay down beats in up to three time signatures simultaneously) for the guys to use in the future.
As Moog synthesizer pioneers, Paul and Bernie were well aware of the necessity of click tracks in that era before computer-based music production and timecode readers, where even big modular Moog synthesizers usually could only play one note at a time, requiring harmonies to be laboriously built up on multitrack tape, one musical line at a time in sync with the others, with the performer listening to the click to get the timing right.
A&R
From 1969 through the early 70s, at least 4 albums worth of material and another album of Bob’s material was recorded.
They tried to get a label interested but received no joy. By early 1970, the 60’s were over and the S.F. hippy dream was now just embers. Most of the recording companies’ A&R guys having left the city and gone back to wherever they came from.
Winter 1970
The guys, now calling themselves ‘Summer Madness’, had an EP pressed.
Primarily Christmas presents for friends and family, the EP included 4 songs; Leaving on a Jet Plane, The Little Drummer Boy, In the Hills of Shiloh (where Chet’s vocals were processed through Bernie Krause’s Moog synthesizer to achieve a strange ring-modulated, voice doubling effect) and a song called Summer Madness (with lyrics by Bob Orban and set to a Peter Schickele tune originally called ‘4:00 AM, June; The Sky Was Green’) which incorporated a really difficult doubled three-part harmony that took the guys two days to record.
The machine (in the centre in the image below) was the one used on the original basic tracks in the basement for ‘Jet Plane’.
Although the one Bob had was made portable by putting the transport and electronics into two quite large and very heavy trunks with a HUGE cable to connect them!
Postscript
The four track Bob had resembled the machine in the center picture but it was (and may still be in his basement) an AG-300.
Geoffrey Chandler
Geoff Chandler did the artwork for the EP. As more stars align, it turns out the San Francisco based artist is the same Geoffrey Chandler who made the one pioneering deep space ambient / new-age album ‘Starscapes’.
Released in 1980, the tracks of ‘Starscapes’ were recorded from 1974-78, mostly in the same Menlo Park house as the ‘Summer Madness’ sessions and with much of the same equipment. Although Geoff was mainly known musically as an electronic musician who used a Minimoog and Bob’s custom outboard equipment to build elaborate, deep soundscapes via multitrack layering, he also played drums and bass and enjoyed free-jamming with Chet and Bob.
Geoff’s artwork also graces albums by Iasos and Constance Demby. Geoffrey Chandler left us for another journey in July 15, 2017.
Geoffrey, the man, had a hearty appetite for life and strong opinions. Loved surfing as a participant in his youth and later enjoyed surfing films.
He came of age at the height of the cultural renaissance of the 1960s and 70s, and experienced the full measure of the time. Enjoyed hosting parties of his friends, the community of artists in the Bay Area. Had a great knowledge of classical music and psychedelic music of the late 60s. Produced an album of his own space music in the 70s.
Geoff also loved the outdoors and his estate is donating to his favorite charity, Save the Redwoods League.
The Interstitial Niche
Only one other recording actually found its way to vinyl. On the following Christmas, using the IBM computer inspired term as the bands new name ‘The Interstitial Niche’, another self released Christmas present was pressed on to 45. It included an instrumental composed by Gardiner called ‘Snakedance’ on one side and on the flip a Robert Orban composition entitled ‘Credo’.
And now?
Chet Gardiner
Chet has performed with Dorothy Morrison, David Maloney, Faith Petric, Filmore Slim, Jon Fromer, Dave Lippman, Gary U.S. Bonds, The Temptations Motown Review, John Sebastian, John McCutcheon, Kathy Mattea, S.F. Bay Area Blues Society Caravan of All-Stars, Tom Dundee, Sukay, Jimmy Collier, Joe Louis Walker, Chuck Brodsky, Mitch Woods, Frankie Lee and Lucy Lee. He lives in Hawaiʻi Rents out his 1300 Kona coffee trees. Still very active in music playing with his band Mauka Soul, his friend Solomon I Choo and does the occasional solo gig.
Robert Orban
Bob is healthy and still quite active. His company Orban has been the benchmark for professional audio processing worldwide. It continues today to provide absolute state-of-the-art audio solutions for live performance venues. As well as content creators, radio, TV and Internet broadcasters.
Geoffrey Chandler
Geoff entered a new journey on July 15, 2017. Primarily an artist, and based in San Francisco he also made the pioneering deep space ambient / new-age album ‘Starscapes’. His artwork also graces albums by Iasos and Constance Demby.
Steve Gardiner
Steve is very retired and often has play-dates with his 3 year old twin granddaughters who live nearby.
Music Is Love
A heathen, conceivably, but not, I hope, an unenlightened one
Fran Rodriguez is a graphic designer from Cantabria and now lives in Barcelona who spends his time listening to music and dreaming of living in the mountains and being an astronaut.
His fascination with with collage as an art form started when he was very little. Cutting out people and animals from his grandmother’s magazines.
I used to put people’s faces onto animal bodies and vice versa.
He found Photoshop and discovered the lasso tool and layers and started doing collages without really knowing what he was doing. He says it just happened.
His work is marked by a fondness for surrealism and psychedelia. The “normal” perception of things has long ceased to interest him. He firmly believes that what we perceive through our senses is only the tip of the iceberg. Discovering what lies beneath the surface has become the closest thing to a life project he has ever had.
Every project varies, music plays a huge role in everything that he does. Music is always around, above and behind every piece he designs. He would love to collaborate and creating artworks for bands like Spiritualized.
His work inspired me funnily enough when doing work for Slipstream, a band that contains 2 former members of Spiritualized.
I also borrowed a collage for the background artwork my mix for Eclectics
Be sure to check out Fran Rodriguez at domestika and lacabezaenlasnubes and at Collage Collective
All artwork on this page are owned by the artist who created them © No copyright infringement is intended
