Two Musicians

This week’s Sunday NY Times featured articles on two favorite artists of mine, both ground-breakers in the 60’s folk scene who produced a small but brilliant output and then dropped out of view. Both have since died. They were Fred Neil, a singer possessed of a rich, deep baritone voice who also wrote, and wrote well (the article is primarily about “Everybody’s Talkin’”, used as the theme for “Midnight Cowboy”, which is undoubtedly his best known song, particularly the Harry Nilsson rendition). The other, Sandy Bull, was one of the first popular artists to go deep into fusion in long, raga-like sets. He was a string instrument master, particularly on guitar (although his banjo version of Orff’s “Carmina Burana” is brilliant); his albums are purely instrumental. The paper gets some things slightly wrong, as always, but it’s nice to see guys like Fred Neil and Sandy Bull get some press. Best sets to pick up are “The Many Faces of Fred Neil”, a two-disc collection of his Capitol output (which also includes his own ragaesque piece), and “Re-Inventions”, a good “best” set of Sandy Bull’s work.

Both, as you might guess, have tracks in the DJStan's Selections playlist (did I mention that my personal rules limit artists to one track per album at any given time?). Fred Neil is represented by a song that is both soothing and deeply yearning at the same time, a combination of feelings he conveys so well; the song is a variation on the traditional, "Fare Thee Well" and is called "Faretheewell (Fred's Song)". The Sandy Bull cut is also a variation on a traditional melody; Sandy takes a gospel tune (which is probably more familiar as Ray Charles' "I Got A Woman"), sets it to a heavily reverbed electric guitar playing mostly in the lower registers, and rings changes on it for about 10 minutes; sometimes I wish this piece were longer.

You know, on reflection, the Fred Neil cut is also heavy on reverb, as are a lot of Fred's (and Sandy's) arrangements in general; I wonder if they listened to each other. Wouldn't surprise me at all.