High up in the little land of unknownables list is this spartanly efficient rock outfit from San Francisco. Also primal in the “this music could only have come from one country” category. Those Flamin Groovies!
high school dance intermission experts!
Guitarist, songwriter David Champagne
David Champagne has mainly been toiling in musical backwaters for years. A guitar sheik. His nearly recent hard to find effort “Agnostic Gospel” (2016) caught my eye and ear. An artistic amalgam of performance and band camping recording, enlisting compatriots from the varsity team of Boston’s veteran music scene with fundraising to support it from the likes of you and me. Disorganized Religion at its finest; low rent unwashed, admirable unorthodoxy, upwardly mobile losing streakers!
Laura Cortese featured vocalist
Ms. Gentry, was a singular, understated regional voice whose morality tales added boldly to the irregular musical vocabulary of the South and beyond in the 1960’s. She packed it in and closed up shop at 39 in 1982. The apparent lure was a gated community in either Memphis or Los Angeles. Just celebrated turning 80! How bout this moody ‘deep track” as they say.
“
Everyday I get up and pray to Jah
And he increases the number of clocks
By exactly one
Everybody’s coming home for lunch these days
Last night there were skinheads on my lawn
Take the skinheads bowling
Take them bowling
Take the skinheads bowling
Take them bowling
Some people say bowling alleys
got big lanes
(Got big lanes)
(Got big lanes)
Some people say that bowling alleys
all look the same
(Look the same)
(Look the same)
There’s not a line that goes here
That rhymes with anything
(Anything)
(Anything)
Had a dream last night
But I forget what it was
(What it was)
(What it was)
Take the skinheads bowling
Take them bowling
Take the skinheads bowling
Take them bowling
Take the skinheads bowling
Take them bowling
Take the skinheads bowling
Take them bowling
Had a dream last night
About you my friend
Had a dream
I wanted to sleep next to plastic
Had a dream
I wanted to lick your knees
Had a dream
It was about nothing
Take the skinheads bowling
Take them bowling
Take the skinheads bowling
Take them bowling
Take the skinheads bowling
Take them bowling
Take the skinheads bowling
”
“The Youngbloods
Delaney and Bonnie
Atwood Hall
1972
This concert was free to Clark students and somehow word got out beyond campus. While I wasn’t outside the hall, I understood that there were many people that did not get in and security had a challenge getting them to disperse.
Delaney and Bonnie Bramlett were at the end of their short (1967-1972) but active career. Often called Delaney and Bonnie and Friends. The friends included Dave Mason, Joe Cocker, Clarence White, Duane Allman, Gram Parsons, Rita Coolidge, Billy Preston, Tina Turner, Eric Clapton, Bobby Whitlock, George Harrison and briefly, Jimi Hendrix. None of those luminaries were in the 1972 version. They played a forty-five minute set of their rock/blues/soul mix.
The Youngbloods were never very financially successful. Their highest charting recording, Elephant Mountain in 1969, only made it to 118 in the rock/pop charts. This concert was one of their last as they broke up in 1972. Despite that, this was a GREAT show.
I was the head of the Social Affairs Board and had booked the concert. The Youngbloods had not signed the standard contract that stated the fee and the length of the two sets. I was backstage with the band waiting for them to sign. Delaney and Bonnie had finished their set at least thirty and possibly forty-five minutes earlier. I could hear the crowd getting restless. The Youngbloods were in no hurry to perform or to sign the contract. Basically they were practicing an a cappella version of Light Shine, over and over. Finally Jesse Colin Young looked at the contract and lined out the notation of two forty minute sets and inserted unlimited. Who was I to argue?
The group at this concert was Jesse Colin Young, guitar, bass and vocals, Michael Kane on bass, Joe Bauer on drums, their manager and roadie, Earthquake on harmonica and Lowell Levinger (Banana) on lead guitar, piano, finger cymbals, pedal steel guitar, vocals.
Their performance was really three distinct concerts. The first set consisted of all their most well known tunes such as Grizzly Bear, Darkness, Darkness, Sugar Babe, It’s A Lovely Day, Ride the Wind and Get Together. The audience loved it.
The second set was a sixty-minute improvisational jam session that showed just how great a musician Banana was and how tight the band sounded. I do not recall that there were any vocals. I loved it, but was not so sure about the audience’s reaction.
The third set featured their blues-rock covers of such tunes as Johnny B. Goode, Peepin’ N’ Hidin and many others. The crowd was out of their seats and dancing throughout Atwood. It was quite a scene.
And they did not perform Light Shine.”
With all the theologians populating this week’s edition I had to include this gem “Spiritual Leather” from Mr. Rowe. He can survive indefinitely in the woods with his survivalist skills and is from religious mecca Troy, N.Y.
Paintings of Ben Shahn, 1898-1969