Here’s another live demo from the same 1971 session that brought us Kendell’s “Walk on the Water” and “Have a Cigar”, among others. This one was written during his time in San Anselmo, where he lived just up the hill from a popular club called “The Lion’s Share.” The club hosted all manner of bay area notables like the relocated Van Morrison, the Grateful Dead, Quicksilver Messenger Service, and the Sons of Champlin. When Kendell wasn’t gigging there himself, he’d frequently hang out until closing time. Kendell characterizes “Get in a Groove” as being among his “barroom ballads,” although it will probably lift your spirits a bit more than that category might suggest.
[See an updated entry about “Uranium Miner’s Boogie” here.]
This is an extremely rare early Utah rock ’n’ roll treasure, and it comes to us courtesy of New Mexico record collector Jerry Richards. It was appropriately released on the Atomic label and recorded at Recording Arts, Inc. in Salt Lake City, the “Wall Street of Uranium Stocks” (RAI is no longer with us but until 1944 was run by future LDS church president Gordon B. Hinckley). It’s a great example of a record that spoke directly to its home region, which was Utah and the four corners area, and didn’t circulate much beyond that. It’s also high grade western swing-cum-early rockabilly featuring some of the sassiest of steel guitar riffage.
If you’re familiar with the Southeastern Utah area, you’ll catch the references to Grand and San Juan counties, which were true hotbeds of the post-WWII uranium mining industry, as well as Cottonwood, the southern canyon area near the Grand Staircase (not to be confused with Big or Little Cottonwood canyons, although they’d also work fine in a uranium mining context). And if you’re well-versed in atomic industry history, you’ll recognize acronymic nods to the Vanadium Corporation of America, the U.S. Vanadium Corporation, and the Atomic Energy Commission.
Richards found his own copies of the record in Helper, Utah, which makes perfect sense, as he puts it, “because Helper was, and still is, a mining town.” The record came out as a 78 and a 45, with the 45 version pressed in blue vinyl. Both came packaged in what Richards refers to as “brown paper bag sleeves.”
There’s still quite a bit of homework to be done regarding virtually everything else about this record and the folks who made it happen. The year, for example – I’ve seen it listed as anywhere between 1954 and 1957. The relaxed mastery of the musical idiom along with the casual appearance of “rockin” in the group’s name makes me assume it’s post-1956, but I’d absolutely love it if I were wrong. For now, though, strap on your rock ’n’ roll geiger counters and watch those needles fly.
Riley Walker and His Rockin-R-Rangers – “Uranium Miner’s Boogie”
UK guitar tamer Dave Evans put out four records, including the non-overdubbed, well-chiseled instrumental masterpiece Sad Pig Dance (1974). He also managed to squeeze in this cheeky Old Grey Whistle Test appearance. Not long after this TV appearance was taped he’d call it good with the record scene, go off to Belgium, and focus on building guitars.
In this live radio recording of “Gypsy Dance,” you can hear Kendell giving a stylistic nod to Van Morrison in his vocal delivery. It turns out that shortly after he moved to San Francisco, he and Rig drummer Rick Shlosser were offered jobs by Morrison – Kendell as leader of his backup unit and Shlosser, of course, as drummer. Part of the deal would be that Kendell could have full access to the band for his own projects. For reasons Kendell in retrospect “can’t really figure,” he opted out (although Shlosser said yes).
It’s easy to hear about this now and to think “oops!”, but talking with Kendell, it’s clear that the gravity of the prospect was hardly lost on him then. Two big factors for him to consider were Morrison’s famously thorny demeanor, which he’d had many chances to observe up close, and his own percolating recording ambitions, which would have had to have been set aside to some extent. Nonetheless, Kendell’s closeness to so many in the entourage enabled him to catch Morrison live a few hundred times. So much so that his admiration for the Irishman, as he puts it, “resulted in an experimental change of style that wasn’t quite resolved and took a while to assimilate.” “Gypsy Dance” comes from this era and would have been included on the ‘72 Columbia LP. For now, though, we’ve got this live radio version which, thankfully, still survives.
More info about Korni Grupa. Somebody probably told them that “corny” was not a good name for a band, so their official international name eventually became the Kornellians. The group had two distinct approaches to their recordings: Their 45s were strictly commercial and aimed for radio, but their B-sides and LPs tended to be convoluted prog-rock concepts. I imagine it was hard for their boss Kornelije Kovac to negotiate the two, with 45s being so easy to record and get on the radio, while only a handful of people seemed to care for the LPs.
I stumbled upon this interesting video of their concept record 1941, which was written and recorded to mark the 30th aniversary of March 27, when Yugoslav opposition organized anti-fascist demonstrations in Belgrade. 1941 was built around lyrics previously published by the Serbo-Bosnian poet Branko Copic. At that time, Dado Topic (later in Time) was the singer of Korni Grupa, while Jospia Lisac, a pop/rock singer from Zagreb, guested on “Marija,” probably the best song on the record.
The poem itself starts as if it’s about the Virgin Mary, but it’s actually about a young anti-fascist Yugoslav Partisan woman, a fighter in World War II who fearlessly died while storming the Nazi bunker. Kornelije Kovac decided to give this story a musical setting reminiscent of the best Big Brother and the Holding Company moments. The 1941 film originally aired on TV in 1971, but the record was in the vaults for a couple of more years after that. (The reasons for this delay were definitely not political).
If you follow the annual cheese-fest known as the Eurovision Song Contest, you’ll know that it happened in Belgrade this year (Russia won). I couldn’t help but wonder how the entire event would pan out considering the recent protests and riots over Kosovo’s proclamation of independence.
I checked in with Stanislav of The Little Lighthouse, who grew up in the ill-fated Croatian/Serbian border town of Vukovar. He assured me that Serbs know how to throw a good party,” even with an enemy. All current enemies were apparently treated well” – the “Albanian and Dutch representatives got cheers,” and there were “no boos.” One Slovenian announcer was shown saying things like “Zdravo braco Srbi!” (Hello Serbian brothers!). Also, the Bosnian entry got the full 12 points from Serbian voters as did the Serb entry from the Bosnians.
My response: “Is there any hope at all for a successful Eurovision having an impact in healing the tenuous political situation?” His response: “Eurovision is a huge party… I don’t think people see it as a political statement.” He’s right – some people really do tend to wallow in entertainment-related subjects as though they had some profound function.
Stanislav did remind me of some of the Yugoslav entries of the ’70s and ’80s, such as the Serbian progressive outfit Korni Grupa in 1975. “They had a pretty decent song [‘Moja Generacija’] about WW2 although it probably depressed most of Europe.” So they bombed at Eurovision ’75 as martyrs for meaning.
Let’s get the weekend going with another one of Kendell’s lost gems. This one, like “Apple Pickin’ Time,” was recorded in San Francisco during the spring of ’72 when he was working as a street singer on Fisherman’s Wharf.
This next track by Kendell comes from his time in L.A., when he was adjusting, as he puts it, to being “just another nobody” in a town where you “had to be careful not to step on a songwriter in the aisles at the local Ralph’s supermarket.” Leaving his heady and heartbreaking time in S.F. behind, he ended up staying in a cottage that happened to be owned by Gram Parson’s manager, who was also an ex-Navy buddy of the already-jailed Charles Manson. Unwelcome and unfriendly visits from Manson’s people, as well as the LAPD, who were exploring the landlord’s curious gardening habits, made Kendell’s eviction – in order to make way for Emmylou Harris – a matter of understandable relief. Kendell then moved in with a roommate who had a couple of teenage sons, and “Sergeant Barkley and Little Tim” is a tribute to one of the boys’ friends, who had gotten in the habit of “liberating the property of the undeserving” and sharing it with others. This sticky-fingered would-be Robin Hood whose ongoing rivalry with one Sgt. Barkley made for another memorable song from Kendell.
Another installment of tracks from Kendell’s 1971 live demo sessions. These were both influenced by his years worshiping at a storefront church in Harlem during the sixties. As he puts it, “my experience at Gospel Church opened many doors. I began to explore the available records of then contemporary gospel artists I could find, in addition to Mahalia [Jackson]. Marion Williams stands out, among others. In any case, I was moved to try to create some songs of my own in that style, and these are 2 examples.” Jim Post, incidentally, recorded “Walk on Water” several years later on Fantasy Records.
“Silver Engine” is a track from the same demo sessions that brought us “Buzzy and Jimmy.” As Kendell puts it, “it’s based on a dream I had which reinterpreted a story my grandmother had once told me about the rapture when I was a little boy.” This is one of Kendell’s better known tracks, and it’s been recorded by a number of artists such as Jim Post and bluegrass group the Morgan Bros., among others. And now, here it is – Kendell’s own unissued version.
