Julius Wechter and the Baja Marimba Band: Do You Know the Way to San Jose?

Shut the Front Door!  This is awesome on every level.  The cover, the band name, the songs, the music.  Bacharach and David.  And of course America's great songwriter - Jimmy Webb.  Who was Julius Wechter?  Well - Mr. Wiki says..

Julius Wechter (May 10, 1935 – February 1, 1999) was an American musician and composer who played the marimba and vibraphone. He also played various percussion instruments. He composed the song "Spanish Flea" for Herb Alpert and was leader of the The Baja Marimba Band.  Born in Chicago, Wechter played vibes and percussion for the Martin Denny group in the 1950s. In the early 1960s, he moved on to movie soundtracks and television, as well as session work for the likes of the Beach Boys, Sonny and Cher and various Phil Spector productions.  He began his long and successful association with Herb Alpert and his Tijuana Brass when he played percussion on the Tijuana Brass's first hit, "The Lonely Bull", in 1962. He later composed "Spanish Flea". Playing marimba and vibes on many of the songs on Alpert's subsequent albums in the 1960s, as well as writing at least one song on most of those albums, Wechter contributed much to the Tijuana Brass sound and style without receiving public credit for it at the time.  Encouraged by Alpert, Wechter formed the Baja Marimba Band in 1964 and was quite successful. The "BMB" placed 4 chart songs in Billboard's Top 100,and many more on their Easy Listening Top 40. When the band disbanded in the mid 1970s, Wechter turned his attention to TV and movies again, scoring the Disney film Midnight Madness. He continued to play with Herb Alpert, joining his touring version of the Tijuana Brass in the mid 1970s.  In his later years, he devoted himself to psychology, earned a Master's Degree, and served as vice president of the Southern California chapter of the Tourette Syndrome Association.  He died at his home in California of lung cancer, a day after his song "Spanish Flea" was used in the Simpsons episode "Sunday, Cruddy Sunday".

The New Seekers: new colours. Recorded at Trident Studios

The New Seekers - new colours.  Recorded at the famous Trident Studios, London.  I think the first iteration of the Seekers did that great Coke jingle I'd Like to Teach the World to Sing.  I just read this about Trident Studios:  One of the many famous albums recorded at Trident was Lou Reed's Transformer, produced by David Bowie, who in turn recorded many albums there including The Rise and Fall of Ziggy Stardust.  Rick Wakeman was the in-house session keyboard player at the time and can be heard on many recordings, including the classics "Life on Mars?" and "Changes."  The owners - the Sheffield brothers' relaxed attitude towards audio engineering and the studio's state-of-the-art equipment encouraged many artists to record there.  In other studios, such as EMI/Abbey Road Studios, the engineers still did most things "by the book."

Some great records made at Trident:  Supertramp's Crime of the Century.  Elton's Tumbleweed Connection.  Bowie's Aladdin Sane and Space Oddity.  Queen's first four albums.  And Trespass and Nursery Cryme by Genesis.

The legendary Trident A Range consoles were originally built by and for Trident Studios.  When word spread about this revolutionary new multi-track recording console design, other studios placed their orders and Trident Audio Developments was formed.  Cherokee Studios in Los Angeles was one of the early recipients of one of the first production models, and ultimately purchased three new from Trident and one from a broker at a later time.  David Bowie, Rod Stewart, and Frank Sinatra are among the early artists who first recorded hit records on Cherokee’s first 'A' Range console.  With only 13 consoles ever built of this model, the Trident A Range has attained a near mythical status in the professional recording industry.  “Though it had a very limited run, the Trident A Range console gained a reputation for its very distinct and pleasant sound with a very “musical” EQ section.  Along with channel strips from early Neve and Helios consoles, original Trident A Range modules have kept a healthy resale value and are much sought after by engineers who like to combine old-school analog gear with bleeding-edge digital recording technology.” Trident also gained a reputation for the sound of its piano, which can be heard on The Beatles' "Hey Jude", Elton John's "Your Song", and many other tracks.  It was a handmade C. Bechstein concert-sized instrument that was over one hundred years old.  Its classic sound was much sought after, but after being restrung toward the end of Trident's history, the piano sounded 'brighter' and was not to everyone's taste.

Mickey Thomas: Rock Singer

You know how much I love Elvin Bishop's Fooled Around and Fell in Love with Mickey Thomas on lead vocals.  Here is his solo effort.  On the back cover, he writes "I would like to thank the following special people for playing on my album: Elvin Bishop, Steve Cropper, Donald "Duck" Dunn, "Big" Jim Horn, Booker T. Jones, David Paich, Wayne Perkins, and Jeff Porcaro" - Mickey.  I have not played this record but will soon.  What a line-up!  We see it was first sold as a cut-out.  And it is in very good shape. on the MCA label.

Pete Townshend: Empty Glass

In the summer of 1980 - my pal Greg bought this album and we played it nonstop.  I would place this record in a loose category of other albums as "Main Guys in Top Bands Who Released a Great Solo Record While Still in the Band, That Did Not Break Up."  This one is up at the top of that list, and also on any list of great albums.  Phil Collins did Face Value.  And I do very much like Mick's She's the Boss that he made with his pals from Chic, of which Keith highly disapproved.  Bruce does these too.  But Empty Glass could be the best of all of those - or any others.  This is the back cover photo.  Pete, with a halo - how ironic, and if you squint, the silhouettes of the washed out images of the ladies on his arms appear as the wings of the himself as an angel.  On the ATCO label, go back and sample the gem song on this record And I Moved, with those gorgeous crescendo-ing piano scales by Rabbit Bundrick that escalate to infinity and hear how awesome this record is.  As for the album title, Pete uses theses little shapes or avatars that depict various types of wine, beer, or mixed drink glasses on the liner notes as some type of code or song indicator.  The shapes were created by Meher Baba.  I have to guess that's the guy in Baba O'Reilly.  I love Pete's solo work with Slit Skirts as one of my all-time favorite songs - ever.  I also get choked up over his arrangement of Real Good Looking Boy.  And - an album I may have posted before here, Rough Mix with Denny Lane - is great.  And if you dig a bit on youtube - find the extended version of Gonna Get Ya - at 8 or 9 minutes.  That is my favorite song this week.

Canned Heat: My "They Played at Woodstock List" is Nearly Complete

Canned Heat - their song, Going Up the Country, to me, and likely also to many others who were also NOT at Woodstock, is the quintessential Woodstock theme song.  And with so many great songs by so many artists - that's quite an achievement.  Maybe that is because during the movie - during the song, we see happy fest-goers swimming and having a great time - and then cut to the stage.  The sound quality is ragged, but serviceable.  This record also helps to round out my collection of Vinyl Records by Acts who Played at Woodstock.  Side note - I am still looking for records by Quill and The Keef Hartley Band, and a few others.  This record, shown above, is called Living the Blues, a two record "double" album - quite rare in those days, 1968.  The DLA had not been "born" yet.  It is the third album by Canned Heat.  These guys must have been one of the original jam bands.  Disc two has just 2 songs on it.  The 20 minute medley called Parthenogenesis and the other side has just the one song - called Refried Boogie, also at 20 minutes, which when they played Woodstock was re-worked (and renamed) as Woodstock Boogie.

Blondie - Autoamerican. Plus new songs that go together by Dante

Blondie - Autoamerican.  Rather than comment on this great record, my very good pal Dante wanted to add to my Like Peanut Butter and Jelly list of songs than came out on albums that really need to be played/listened to consecutively.  My starter list contains Bob Seger (Live Bullet): Travelin' Man/Beautiful Loser.  Led Zeppelin (II) Heartbreaker/Living Loving Maid.  Journey (Infinity): Feeling that Way/Anytime.

Dante adds to that list, these songs that must be played together, in order: Queen (News of the World): We Will Rock You/We Are The Champions.  ZZ Top (Tres Hombres): Waitin' For The Bus/Jesus Just Left Chicago.  The Beatles (Sgt. Pepper): Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band/With A Little Help From My Friends.  The Police (Zenyatta Mondatta): Driven to Tears/When the World is Running Down, You Make the Best of What's Still Around.  And though they're a CD-era band (I'm not even sure this record was released on vinyl originally), I always felt The Pixies' "Head On"/"U Mass" on Trompe Le Monde was a great PB&J pairing.  Thanks Dante - very well done!