Puttin on the Beamer Brothers...

In case you can't see it in the photo, this is what is says on the from cover of the album: "Jack de Mello presents Keola and Kapono Beamer.  This is our Island Home - We Are Her Sons.  Hawaiian Slack Key Guitar in the Real Old Style."  I found out about the Beamer Brothers from a song written and sung by Steve Dahl - a Chicago radio legend.  The song is a called Aloha Friday.  And I have a clip of it attached to this post.  The chorus of that song goes,  ..."puttin' on the Beamer Brothers, would you mind puttin' in this grass skirt...?"  In the video clip is doing the song acoustic, with Henry Kopono, but I really live the studio, fully plugged in electronic versions.

Rare Earth Day is Friday, April 22, 2011

Today is (Rare) Earth Day, Friday, April 22, 2011.  The album on the left is called Ecology, how fitting.  And hey - who knew - this is another band with a singing drummer.  Name the other bands you like where the drummer sings.  These are both great record album covers for sure.  Rare Earth is sort of an outlyer - they are an American rock band affiliated with Motown's Rare Earth record label (which was named after the band).

    It's a cool band name.  As defined by IUPAC, "rare earth elements or rare earth metals are a set of seventeen chemical elements in the periodic table, specifically the fifteen lanthanoids plus scandium and yttrium.  Scandium and yttrium are considered rare earth elements since they tend to occur in the same ore deposits as the lanthanoids and exhibit similar chemical properties.  Despite their name, rare earth elements (with the exception of the radioactive promethium) are relatively plentiful in the Earth's crust, with cerium being the 25th most abundant element at 68 parts per million (similar to copper).  However, because of their geochemical properties rare earth elements are typically dispersed and not often found in concentrated and economically exploitable forms known as rare earth minerals.  It was the very scarcity of these minerals (previously called "earths") that led to the term "rare earth."  The first such mineral discovered was gadolinite, a compound of cerium, yttrium, iron, silicon and other elements. 

    But back to the band - they were not the first white band to sign with Motown Records, but Rare Earth was the first big hit-making act signed by Motown that consisted only of white members.  The very sad thing is - when I went to play these records, the lp's inside were mismatched.  One was a Black Sabbath record, the other was a Savoy Brown record.  When I buy used records, sometimes that happens.  Bummer.

The Mahavishnu Orchestra - Birds of Fire

This record and music reminds me of Return to Forever, some of Jeff Beck's work, etc. And the one-off album (which I own) called Friday Night in San Francisco, a 1981 live album by Al Di Meola, John McLaughlin and Paco de Lucía recorded at the Warfield Theatre on 5 December 1980. The Mahavishnu Orchestra was considered by many to be an important pioneer in the jazz fusion movement. John McLaughlin and Billy Cobham met while performing and recording with Miles Davis during the epic and highly contentious Bitches Brew sessions. Apparently, Miles was being obstenant (on purpose, or just his nature?) in order to create tension, which in theory would spur creativity. McLaughlin was also influenced in his conception of this band by his studies with Indian guru Sri Chinmoy, who encouraged him to take the name "Mahavishnu" which means "Divine compassion, power and justice."



Johnny Paycheck

Donald Eugene Lytle, a/k/a Johnny Paycheck.
Sad to report he passed away on February 19, 2003, but he deserves this post.  Of course he was a country music singer and a member of Grand Ole Opry member.  Membership in the Opry is country music's crowning achievement.  Legends Hank Williams, Patsy Cline, Roy Acuff, the Carter family, Bill Monroe, Ernest Tubb, Kitty Wells and Minnie Pearl are members.  And of course Johnny Paycheck was most famous for recording the David Allan Coe song "Take This Job and Shove It."   Paycheck had marginal success in the 1970s as a smaller part of what had become country music's "Outlaw Movement," of whom DAC, Waylon, Willie, Merle, and Billy Joe Shaver were members.  In the 1980s, his music career suffered from his problems with drugs, alcohol, and legal difficulties. He served a prison sentence in the early 1990s but his declining health effectively ended his career in early 2000.

Patrick Hernandez - Born to be Alive

Patrick Hernandez - Born to be Alive.  Yikes - here goes.  OK, the title is Curtis Collects Vinyl Records.  We here in the basement at ecumenical - so without comment on musical quality or artistic stylings from a bygone era...when I saw this LP in the bins at Record Breakers this past Saturday during Record Store Day - I just had to buy it.  It hit pretty big in 1979, the year I graduated from high school.  I had Nugent and Seger tapes in my heavily Bondo'd Fiat 124 Spider Sport ragtop.  But I would sneak into the den and play this record.  On the back cover there, under the logo thing, inside the boxed area it says "With Special Guest Hervé Tholance."  I looked that dude up on wiki and read the he's an arranger, guitarist, and vocalist.  And during this last seventies period, he and Patrick formed a duo and started achieving local success, backing French musicians such as Francis Cabrel, Laurent Voulzy, and the French group Gold.

Sammy Hagar: The Red Rocker VOA and All NIght Long

Sammy Hagar...The Red Rocker.  Book Review:  I am reading his new autobiography and liking it.  He had a nice ride with the Van Halen brothers, for about nine years, but I am at the part now in the book where that seems to be falling apart.  His newly created mezcal bar and cantina in Cabo is Wabo'ing, but I think we know that that turns out.  Cool to know Sam was down in Baja Sur way before anything else was going on.  Sadly, for his best solo album, Standing Hampton, he mentions the making of it in all of one sentence - so that is a huge disappointment in the book.  It's such a shame, because that album is one of my top, all time favorites.  But Sam clearly has a vibe all his own and is true to his color (Red, of course) and once he broke free of Montrose and did his own thing, that he took off.  As I read, I am figuring out out that maybe Van Halen need him more that he needed them.  Sam stayed true to bassist Michael Anthony.  But let's see how this turns out.  Bet he Can't Get Loose...

John Sebastian - revisiting Woodstock

There should be a special wing (maybe there is - I've never been there) at the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame for those performers fortunate, good, and/or wise enough to have played at Woodstock.  Iron Butterfly was rejected based on the band's unreasonable and downright hokey demands.  Joni Mitchell did not want to miss her appearance on the Dick Cavett show on that Monday.  But legends were made and reinforced that weekend: CSN, The Who, Santana, Janis, and Jimi.  But John Sebastian, and certainly Richie Havens earned his stripes there.  And the obscure and tragic Tim Hardin would have been even more obscure had not played, and what about the Friday night lullaby from Joan Baez.  Legend has it - Joe Cocker invented playing Air Guitar there.  I guess even ShaNaNa should get their props.  So anytime I see any used record by anyone who played at Woodstock - I grab it.  See Henry Gross - below. 

John Sebastian.   Played at Woodstock.

Day After Record Store Day: Henry Gross - Shannon

Shannon (is gone).   A guilty pleasure.  Henry Gross (born April 1, 1951, Brooklyn, New York), is an American singer-songwriter best known for his association with the group, Sha Na Na, and for his hit song, "Shannon".  Wow - a true Woodstock Connection.  did not know this until I peeked at wiki.  At age 18, while a student at Brooklyn College, Gross became a founding member of Sha Na Na, playing guitar and wearing on-stage the greaser clothes he wore while a student at Midwood High School.  As for the smash hit Shannon...he moves over to Lifesong Records to make his next album.  He produced a single, "Shannon", a song written about the death of Beach Boy Carl Wilson's Irish setter of the same name.  The single went gold based on US sales alone, and became a worldwide hit, reaching #6 on the Billboard Hot 100 chart in 1976.  After this single's success, Gross released the album, Release.  Which is the record above - that I bought yesterday at Record Store Day.