Saturday, August 09, 2008

A Nice Present

Earlier in the week, I got an email from my friend Tom at "Now Hear This" in Kirkwood (my favorite music store for the last twenty two years). My long awaitied and highly anticipated order came in.


In 1971, this was probably one of the albums that I played the most. What a warm, great sounding record. At this time, Dave was at the top of his game and the addition of Cass Elliot was truly inspirational. Apparently, Cass' sister Leah Kunkel was living above her garage and all sorts of folks would drop by. Stills, Crosby, Nash, Joni Mitchell, etc. It seems that musically, Cass and Dave drew together and Cass said she would produce his new record. Her brother Russ Kunkel got keyboard great Paul Harris and his bass player and away they went. Dave was just coming off "Alone Together" and was on a hot streak. Cass not only produced the record but jump in as well. You can say what you want about Cass, but the people around her worshipped her and she had some of the greatest pipes ever. It's too bad this didn't sell well. It only got as high as number 49 on the top 200. While doing some research, I found it very interesting that Dave NEVER had a top 25 release. I lost this LP somewhere many years ago in one of my countless moves and this has never been released on CD. Until now. What a treat! "Walk To The Point" is on here, so is "To Be Free" and "Here We Go Again", along with some old friends I have reaquainted myself with this morning. There are a couple of fillers "Next To You" but the rest is two great friends, both at the top of their game and a fun, warm re-creation of the end of my freshman year. Good to see and hear an old friend again.

1 comment:

Brian Holland said...

Thanks for the education--I was totally unaware those two ever worked together. The only things I remember Cass doing during that period was hosting "Midnight Special" with John Denver right after the voting age was change to 18, and appearing in a episode (in animated form) of "Scooby-Doo". And you're absolutely right--Cass Elliot had a wonderful singing voice.

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