From Headband To Stetson
Older readers - who am I kidding - all five of you are older - may remember we have a running feature on how bands threw off the trappings of psychedelia during the great Paisley Purge of '69. Many adopted a rustic Americana style decades before that term was invented by some asshole with nothing better to do. Part of that whole back-to-the-land movement that lasted until everyone realized it meant getting your hands dirty and went into advertising instead. Or therapy.
Circus Maximus were on Sam Charters' Vanguard label, which boasted Country Joe & The Fish and other fine, fine acts such as ... such as ... Elizabeth? Uh ... anyway. Charters showed his Love Generation credibility by changing their name from Lost Sea Dreamers, because he sensed a drug connection there. No pulling the wool over old Sam's eyes! They made a couple of sorta okay albums, had a minor radio hit with Wind, before irreconcilable musical differences - helped, one imagines, by lack of sales - drove them apart. Here's where we warm to our theme.
One of the creatives, Bob Bruno, wandered off into the humid primordial jungles of free jazz, and apparently never returned. The other, Jerry Jeff Walker, (real name Ronald Crosby *snork*) cannily flushed his love beads, emerging from the cubicle a folksy Bitter End troubadour, and wrote the best-selling and irritating hit Mr Bojangles, included on his second solo album, Five Years Gone [see the Jerrystock piece - Ed.] Against all the odds, he cut an album in '72 that stands as some kind of craggy pinnacle in Outlaw Country, and of the three albums blister-packed here for your audio convenience it's probably the only keeper. You want timeless? You want great, great songs? This album will put sawdust on your porch.
ReplyDeleteLike you have something better to do.
Howdy doody. Nice stuff, but was it really Sam Charters' Vanguard label? It was founded in NYC in 1950 by Seymour & Maynard Solomon and they released records by an impressive bunch of artists: https://acerecords.co.uk/vanguard-label
ReplyDeleteCharters wrote “as the sixties wound down . . . they began to bring in outsiders to take over some of the work of finding and signing new artists. I was the first of the new people working at the 23rd Street office from 1966 to 1970.”
Charters was a great asset to the label - he brought them Country Joe & The Fish which revived their fortunes with a younger audience - but I think full credit for the breadth of music they put out from Paul Robeson onwards belongs with the Solomon brothers.
Seek out the 4 disk set “Vanguard Collector’s Edition” for a broad sweep of their output and great liner notes from Sam Charters himself.
Apologies if I’m mistaken.
Cheers, Peanuts Molloy
"Sam Charters' Vanguard label" = his bit of Vanguard, then? The rock, pop n' roll bit? Given the freedom of his scope and the richness of the field he was plowing, it's pretty amazing he only dug up the Fish. It's interesting to see that he thought the sixties were "winding down" in '66. In terms of the calendar, maybe.
DeleteSorry No 1: I truncated his quote too severely. The context was the winding down of the 60s "folk boom" (which Vanguard artists were a part of) "as it was overwhelmed by the new wave of excitement over rock music."
DeleteSorry No 2: I certainly don't mean to understate his huge contribution to Vanguard, which he very modestly describes in his lengthy track-by-track sleeve notes in the set I mention above. He is careful to give credit where it's due, which I admire. For example, he notes that Dan Elliott brought Lost Sea Dreamers to Vanguard. Maynard asked Sam to co-produce. Before the album was finished the group was offered a residency at a new club opening on St Marks Place in NY Lower East Side, called Circus Maximus.
I like the Vanguard label and I like Sam but I didn't want your vast readership to overlook the Solomons . . . none of my business, of course!
Cheers, Peanuts Molloy
The Solomons form half the FMF© audience, Peanuts! They say hi!
DeleteVanguard never had the rock savvy (and success) displayed by Elektra but did stay true to their New York Intellectual roots with the choices they made in this area and released some good albums, including the first Circus Maximus album. The songwriting took a big dive on the second.
ReplyDeleteThere's still a great compilation album to be made from Vanguard psychedelic LPs (Follow Me Down isn't it).
Good observation about the NY intellectual roots. I'm always amazed that Charters only managed to pick up CJ&TF, at a time when you had to push your way through hundreds of unsigned bands in SF.
DeleteWhy don't you have a crack at doing that compilation yourself? I'd be pleased to pimp it out here.
I may or may not have the necessary ingredients at hand but your suggestion is interesting. I'll look for obvious holes in my supplies and see what I can do.
Delete