This Bud's for you.......

Nothing like a little comment activity to get a sleepy blog to show some signs of life, and tonight I'm happy to toast visitors with a Bud to cool and refresh your pop jazz guitar cravings. This is, I believe, the last of the original Buddy Fite recordings that was missing from this blog and I'm sorry it took me this long to get around to it, but here it is. There's not a lot to say this time around. My other four Fite posts pretty well express my great admiration for Buddy's work and frankly this album doesn't exactly enthrall me the way "Changes" did when I first discovered the intriguing guitar sound of the 6 foot, six-inch giant of the guitar. As I've stated before, though giant in stature and sound, Buddy Fite never really got the full treatment that might have more clearly revealed his skill and one-of-a-kind sensibilities. Unfortunately his recorded legacy is not only sadly very limited in quantity, but often presents varying quality in presentation as is again the case with this, his first album, "Buddy Fite!" from 1969. It presents a mixed bag of pop jazz that can dive pretty deep into the schmaltzy side, as on "Glad Rag Doll" where the saccharin muzak female chorus nearly makes you break out in laughter. But thankfully there's a healthy dose of what Buddy can really do throughout with special note to "Here's That Rainy Day", "Watch What Happens" and the lively "For Once In My Life" among others. The way he snaps the notes and chords and makes his guitar ring with emotion according to the tune, is once again signature Buddy, despite some of the creepy elevator production ploys. Once again, I'm just glad to add more to the Fite collection here on "Do You Hear What I Hear?" and some of these are keepers that could fit in with the "Changes" album that he put out the following year (1970). There were no credits offered on the album cover and frankly I don't much care who the singers were or the orchestra and strings that accompany most of this work. The focus is Buddy's sound and feel. Buddy passed away back in 2001 so enjoy what we've got here and maybe we'll dig up some more recordings somewhere...till then, this Buds for you....

Cheers!

Buddy Fite - Buddy Fite! (1969)
Cyclone Records CY4100

Side 1
Fly Me To The Moon
When Sunny Gets Blue
They Can't Take That Away From Me
Here's That Rainy Day
What Kind Of Fool Am I
The Shadow Of Your Smile

Side 2
Stormy
Glad Rag Doll
On The Street Where You Live
Watch What Happens
So Rare
For Once In My Life

Buddy Fite - guitar
No other personnel listed.
Updated 7/23/17

Loggin In...

Well here goes my first 70's pop-country-folk-rock album posting. As much as I profess my obsession with jazz, great musicianship, and some of the more outrageous reaches of the musical world (or universe for the sake of my fellow Arkestrans), the truth be known, I am also a lifelong

sucker for many other more mainstream and pop culture artifacts such as we have here. Now anyone that remembers the 70's as clearly as I do (well maybe those four years at UCONN weren't quite so clear) surely recalls Kenny Loggins of the very successful Loggins & Messina Band. Well, that's not the Loggins we have here. Although he is apparently Kenny's cousin, this Loggins is Dave Loggins and he had a pretty big hit of his own with "Please Come To Boston" back in those days. In fact, I went with the masses and openly admired that tune with Dave's expressive vocals ranging from deep to high so effortlessly, good lyrics, too, I thought at the time. So a few years later when I encountered a sad little cut-out 8-track tape by Dave Loggins for sale at a music store I quickly invested the buck or two to investigate and was soon glad I did. Although it did not include the big hit song I was so familiar with, it did offer a very well crafted concept work that I would suggest comes somewhere between Jonathon Edwards and Jimmy Buffet, maybe a touch of Jesse Colin Young. The songs are all decent I think, for the genre, some a bit stronger than others, but generally they keep to a pleasant island theme centered on a love interest, while maintaining a solid folk warmth with some pop-rock voicings that keep things a bit more interesting than the average faire. He does have a very unaffected voice in my opinion, it's sincere in feel and expression, and engaging along with some good lyrical content (though a couple songs arguably offer less than unique words). I remember listening to this on the old 8-track player in my '74 LTD (cop car deal is cool when you're 21) and my favorites were Goodbye Eyes (#1), Ship In A Bottle, Breeze, Please Remember Me, and the title song about Paradise. Once I lost track of the 8-track technology of yesteryear I searched faithfully for a CD of this album, but surprisingly it has never been re-released and remains hard to find, even on vinyl. I did finally snag this LP from e-Bay. Unfortunately there is a slight defect in the vinyl on the start of each side, but it's minimal. A few of the songs here are offered on a best of collection called The Good Side of Tomorrow: 1971-1984. As AllMusic notes there, Loggins can tend toward sounding similar from song to song, but overall he is a unique artist in his quality of voice and he interjects enough subtleties to each tune that I personally think he satisfies the listener for the length of an album like this one. If you enjoy these tracks I would recommend that you buy any of his other albums which are available on CD, including the fore mentioned collection which brings with it the big hit about hopeless love from Boston. But it really seems a shame that this album from 1977 has been neglected. Hopefully you will enjoy it like I have, although you may need a '74 LTD to fully appreciate the feeling that it holds...

 

 

Log In

 

 

Dave Loggins - One Way Ticket To Paradise - 1977

CBS/EPIC PE-34713

Please Remember Me

Goodbye Eyes

Don't Treat Me Like A Stranger

Ship In A Bottle

One Way Ticket To Paradise

(note that "Ship In A Bottle" & "One Way Ticket..." are combined in one track because "Ship" leads into "One Way")

Breeze

The Ballad of Cowboy Twenty

Crowd of Lonely People

Color of the Mood

Three Little Words (I Love You)

Dave Loggins: Guitar, Vocals

Kenny Malone: Drums

Gayle Whitfield: Saxophone

Jack Williams; Pop Bottle: Bass

Reggie Young; Steve Gibson; Johnny Christopher: Guitar

Randy Goodrum: Synthesizer, Keyboards

Yvonne Hodges; Sheri Kramer; Diane Tidwell; Bergen White; Buzz Cason: Vocals

Johnny Gimble: Violin

Something Happened..........

I hate to digress from the holiday theme here, but while going through these old scratchy 45's of mine, some just bring back too many good memories to put off. So this next 45 is from a band I never heard of (before or since I received the record when I was a little kid), "The Sparks". Of course I am familiar with "Sparks" from the 70's/80's and I like them a lot too, but this group from the 50's may not have recorded much more than this single I am offering next. The song I loved from the start is side 1, "Something Happened" (written by William Collins). It's a fairly classic 50's style pop rock tune with Sedaka like harmonies and lots of reverb on the guitar. It's kind of an infectious song that has always stayed with me so now I release it onto the rest of the world. The flip side is included, "Robin Red Breast" (written by Bill Comstock), but it is that folk rock psuedo Mitch Miller/Brothers Four sort of ditty that never hit me for much, but it's here for you to check out. Hope you enjoy side 1 like I first did, one listen and.....something happened....

Something

The Sparks - "Something Happened" - 1958 - 45 rpm
Arwin #MM-114-45 (21533)

The Sparks - "Robin Red Breast" - 1958 - 45 rpm
Arwin #MM-114-45 (21534)