Tuesday, August 9, 2022

How Clarence Pune Missed That Lovin' Feelin' Dept.

Clarence Pune wires screed from the horse shop in back of the pool room!

I’d heard of him, of course.

Legendary British blues singer.
Worked with Elton John, the Stones, Rod Stewart.
I’d heard, too, that he had semi-retired to Vancouver. (This was the late 70‘s.)
But it was a surprise to meet him in a neighborhood Kitsilano pub and to start talking. (Not that he was hard to miss at 6‘7“)
He told me he was doing voice acting for animations.
I told him that I wrote and produced commercials.
“Keep me in mind,” he said.
We exchanged phone numbers.
We often met at the same bus stop for the short hop across the bridge to downtown.
A month later I was writing some radio commercials for holidays in Jamaica. I wanted a deep resonant voice. I called him and asked if he could do a Jamaican accent.
“Give me a day or two,” he said, and next day this deep baritone called me back with the full patois.
We recorded together several times.
One day he invited my wife and I to a recording session. He’d found this girl he adored - no, not that way, he was openly gay - for her voice.
He saw a duet for them.
She was an unknown  session singer from Anacortes, just south of the US/Canada border.
For reasons I regret we didn’t get to the recording session.

This is what we missed:




Thursday, August 4, 2022

The Dickey's Best Band Dept.

Album Art © IoF© Department Of Art© Dept.

Apart from the Allman Brothers, you could argue that the line-up for his 2006 tour was never bettered. Go ahead - find someone else to argue with, I'm agreeing with you. I'm not going to list the musicians - d0ur0w r3srcH ya lazy-ass schnook!

This double live CD is a career high point. Even allmusicdotcom wets its knickers: "His finest moment on tape, period. It also rivals any post-Duane Allman live set by the ABB. For Betts fans, and actually any rock guitar flameout fan, this set is indispensable." He ain't whistlin' Dixie!

So how come you never see this in lists of Best Live Doubles? Here's what did they do to cripple the album's chances:

☠️ "Dickey Betts & Great Southern"? Nobody ever gave a shit about Great Southern, and these guys aren't remotely the same band that cut the disappointing Great Southern albums back in the 'seventies. Did anyone ever say "I gots tix fer Great Southern, man!" Nope. "I gots tix fer Dickey Betts, man!" - if they were being formal.

☠️ An unmemorable mouthful of a title: "The Official Bootleg 2006 North American Tour". Couple this with "Dickey Betts And Great Southern" and you've got enough reading matter to furrow the dainty brows of a (North) American High School class. Also, calling it any sort of bootleg, even an official one (whatever the fuck that is), is strictly low budget.

☠️ A wretched cover [left - Ed.] which would disgrace any bootleg. It's also uncredited. Maybe it just happened while nobody was looking. Fooey.

Does this matter? Of course it matters. But the music is ... fantastic. Mostly consisting of Dickey's greatest Allmans tunes, including a phenomenal half-hour version of Elizabeth Reed and a none-better version of Southbound, it's a total blast.

To round out the loaddown, it's bundled with the great man's finest studio album, Highway Call. No, don't thank me. Just be swell, dude!





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