About a year before John Hartford’s death, a group of artists including Hartford himself gathered to pay tribute to his 30 years of writing and playing music.
From A Tribute to John Hartford Live at Mountain Stage comes this highlight, and in this writer’s opinion Gillian Welch infuses her take on “In Tall Buildings” with a melancholy missing from the writer’s own version.
Hartford is perhaps best known to the uninitiated as the writer of Glen Campbell’s 1968 breakout hit “Gentle On My Mind”.
Thanksgiving Day, a time for full hearts, reflection, and of course crowded tables, seems an appropriate time to serve up this 2019 offering from Brandi Carlile, Natalie Hemby, Maren Morris and Amanda Shires.
Benny Bell, born Benjamin Zamberg, was a pioneer in the field of Jewish comedy who sang in English, Yiddish and Hebrew. During a prolific run in the 1930’s and 40’s he released self-produced, self-written albums–on his own record label, no less.
Well after Bell’s peak of popularity, the nationally syndicated Dr. Demento radio program began playing his 1946 song “Shaving Cream”, which led to notoriety beyond New York City for the first time in his career.
It also led to a re-release of the song in 1975, making Benny Bell the most unlikely one-hit wonder since Tiny Tim. “Shaving Cream” reached #30 in the US charts.
Folky Victoria, B.C. quintet the Bills eschew the usual mandolin, fiddle and accordion for an infectious a cappella sea chantey.
Though this song sounds for all the world like a traditional, it was actually written by the Bills’ Chris Frye in honor of his great uncle, Bamfield, British Columbia coastal fisherman John Vanden, who passed away in 2011 at age 96.
Since its appearance on 2005’s stylistically diverse Let Em Run LP, the song has found favor (and inspired cover versions) in folk circles, so maybe it will attain “traditional” status.
Producer Patrick Leonard, having earned Warner Brothers Records around half a billion dollars by co-writing and producing Madonna albums such as True Blue, Like a Prayer and I’m Breathless, was asked by label chair Mo Austin “What would you like?”.
He replied, “I just want to make a record”, meaning a record of his own material.
Patrick Leonard
The result was Toy Matinee, the one and only album by the band of the same name–possibly the best band ever to have released only one record.
Leonard collaborated with bassist Guy Pratt, singer/multi-instrumentalist Kevin Gilbert, drummer Brian MacLeod, and guitarist Tim Pierce–most of whom had previously worked together on Madonna albums.
Probably because of this previous musical collaboration, the collective gelled into a band, felt like a band, and played like a real band immediately in a way that astounded producer/engineer Bill Bottrell.
Kevin Gilbert
Leonard, being a fan of progressive rock and jazz fusion, had previously sprinkled Madonna songs with largely unnoticed touches of the influence of such artists–“sneaking a lot of stuff by people”, as he described it.
For example, the outro of “Like a Prayer” has a bass line that mimics Jaco Pastorius of Weather Report.
“Cherish” features a shuffle beat in the style of drummer Bernard Purdie, played by Jeff Porcaro. Both Purdie and Porcaro are Steely Dan session alumni.
And the lead track from Toy Matinee, “Last Plane Out”, opens with a conspicuously nimble-fingered, too-good-for-pop acoustic intro that owes a debt to Gentle Giant.
Bill Bottrell
Bottrell’s production helped create an album that straddles the worlds of mainstream, “accessible” music and something more ambitious by reigning in the proggier tendencies of the session aces in the room.
All this and so much more is explained by the band themselves in this short documentary about the making of an album that once filled cutout bins and is now a hard-to-find cult favorite fetching top dollar.
“Last Plane Out” was one of two single releases from the LP, both of which peaked at #23 on Billboard‘s Mainstream Rock Tracks chart.
The band never cracked the Pop top 40 and the album only managed a peak US chart position of #129.
There are no true band photos to share here because, being session players with other commitments, the guys who recorded the album never toured it. Kevin Gilbert assembled an entirely new band that performed the material on several short tours.
If only Toy Matinee could have had a career, not just an album.
Every Moment Has A Song 