Inkwell: Authors and Artists

    
Actually the writer of "High Flying Bird" was Billy Ed Wheeler, not
Judy Henske. But Henske was the first singer to record the song, around
late 1963 (issued at the beginning of 1964).

One reason Henske never experienced broad success is that, until the
late 1960s album she did with Jerry Yester ("Farewell Aldebaran," which
is very good), she wasn't a writer. When that happens, you have to
land some really prime cover material. Judy Collins, for instance, did
this (though she started to write in the late 1960s as well). Judy
Henske did this from time to time; she did good early covers of Fred
Neil songs. But she didn't have the song or pair of songs that would
really break her to a wider audience. Actually, I think her version of
"High Flying Bird" *was* hit single material. But Elektra Records
wasn't set up to promote a 45 to AM radio in early 1964, and it didn't
happen.

Another factor is that, as is the case with some talented eclectics,
Henske's eclecticism -- an artistic strength, for the most part --
worked against her commercially. She was kind of too pop to sell to
some folkies; there's a little bit of show-tune jazzy belter in her.
She was too much of a folkie-comedian to sell to pop listeners. She did
record for Mercury and Reprise in the mid-1960s, and those labels did
try to put her with more pop material and production, but she was just
too quirky and had too much integrity to play that role convincingly.
When she chucked in trying to be commercial and did her own thing, she
got really quirky. Which, artistically, was good -- the album she did
with her then-husband Jerry Yester (ex-Modern Folk Quartet, producer of
Tim Buckley, replacement for Zal Yanovsky in the Lovin' Spoonful),
"Farewell Aldebaran," was very nearly great unclassifiable psychedelic
rock-pop-blues-country-gothic. But it was even less commercial than her
previous work.

"Farewell Aldebaran" goes beyond folk-rock to psychedelia, but is
recommended for seekers of quality obscure late-1960s rock in general.
I wrote a chapter on Judy Henske & Jerry Yester (this was their sole
album as a duo) in my first book, "Unknown Legends of Rock'n'Roll."
  

    
Thanks for correcting my assumption that Judy Henske was the writer of
"High Flying Bird" and for the further insights into her music and
career. I will have to pick up your first book.

Another group you write about in "Turn Turn Turn" is the Leaves -- a
Los Angeles band that, to say the least, suffered from a bit of an
identity crisis. Your coverage of the mild controversy over the
authorship of "Hey Joe" and discussion of subsequent recordings of the
song was particularly interesting. Comparing the different versions --
by the Leaves, the Byrds, Love and, ultimately, Jimi Hendrix -- I lean
toward Hendrix as a personal favorite. Which take on "Hey Joe" do you
think was the most effective and powerful? 
  

    
> #147 of 151: Dave Zimmer 
> Stills ...
> and with Manassas (his vastly underated band

Why would you say that?  I've never heard anything but raves for
the first Manassas album since it came out -- "essential in any
collection"  "one of the best albums ever" etc....  Who do you think
ever "under-rated" it...?

Damn shame that Manassas didn't stay together, make 10 albums...
  

    
I do think the Leaves' version of "Hey Joe" was the best one, though
they were far less critically respected as band than the Byrds and
Love, both of whom put out their own versions in 1966. It's got great
scorching fuzz guitar and a truly hell-bent lead vocal. It's
irreverent, but that's part of what rock and folk-rock music's about,
taking material and reinventing it. The Byrds and Love versions sound
inhibited by comparison.

I like Jimi Hendrix's version, but it's been dulled for me by
overfamiliarity over the years. As many readers probably know, Hendrix
might have been inspired to do his slow and soulful version by
folk-rock singer Tim Rose's slow version on a 1966 single. Rose's
version is worthwhile, but not great (and not as good as Hendrix's).

Few people think of Hendrix as a folk-rocker, but he did take
folk-rock as an influence. In covering "Hey Joe," for one thing, but
also in covering a few Dylan songs, and in gaining confidence from Bob
Dylan's unconventional vocal style to start doing lead vocals himself. 

Tim Rose died about ten days ago in London, by the way. It's always a
shock when someone you've interviewed recently passes away (I
interviewed him in London in early 2001 for my folk-rock books).

There were many versions of "Hey Joe," and I think one of the best was
by the Music Machine. They too did a way-slowed-down version, slower
than Hendrix's or Rose's, with some funereal ghostly organ and
distorted guitar. The Music Machine are thought of as a one-shot group
for "Talk Talk," but actually they did quite a few good songs in the
mid-to-late 1960s. They're another group I did a chapter on in my book
"Unknown Legends of Rock'n'Roll." Another noteworthy version was done
by Patti Smith in the 1970s.


Believe it or not, there's a site on the Web for "Hey Joe" the song,
http://www.heyjoe.org, listing more than 400 versions of the song,
linking to other sites with "Hey Joe" information, etc. Michael Hicks
discusses "Hey Joe" and the controversy over its authorship in detail
in his book "Sixties Rock."

"Hey Joe"'s one of those songs that could generate a whole
(uncommercial) book if you wanted to trace its origins and
transmutations over the years. It should at least generate a MOJO
article.
  

    
Haven't get my copy yet, but I'll be fascinated to read a second opinion
on the "Hey Joe" dust up.   Billy Roberts is an old freind, and all I've
heard is his side of the story.
  

    
Adding a little more on Judy Henske and "High Flying Bird," Billy Ed
Wheeler (I've also seen his name spelled Billy Edd Wheeler) wrote quite
a few songs straddling country, pop, and folk. Probably his most
famous one, other than "High Flying Bird," is "Reverend Mr. Black," a
hit for the Kingston Trio in 1963. He recorded quite a few LPs in the
1960s, none of which I ever see. Judy Collins did three of his songs on
her 1964 "Concert" album, but she couldn't do for his career what she
did for Leonard Cohen's.

"High Flying Bird" is one of those songs that should have been a hit
for *somebody*, but wasn't for *anybody*, for some reason. Judy
Henske's original version seems like the most hit-worthy to me. Anybody
who hears it, whether they're a folk or folk-rock fan or not, loves
it. A lot of other artists tried their hand at the song without making
it a hit. Just off the top of my head, there was Carolyn Hester, the Au
Go Go Singers, the Jefferson Airplane (recorded in late 1965, though
not released until the 1970s), H.P. Lovecraft, Richie Havens, and the
We Five. The Airplane recorded it so early on (December 1965, at one of
their first recording sessions) that I'm inclined to believe it was
considered as a possible debut single. You can hear them doing it on
several live tapes of the era, and an excerpt of them doing it at the
1967 Monterey Pop Festival, with Marty Balin and Grace Slick trading
lead vocals, is in the "Monterey Pop" film.

Also, a transcript of one of my interviews with Judy Henske is on my
website at www.richieunterberger.com/henskefolk.html.
  

    
As an early-1970s band, Manassas fall out of the range of my folk-rock
books, and I don't want to speak for Dave. I think, though, when
Manassas is called an "underrated" band, it's because they really
aren't well-remembered by history or critics, though there are intense
fans of their work. You still hear a lot about CSN, Buffalo
Springfield, the Byrds, and the Flying Burrito Brothers -- all groups
of which Manassas members Stephen Stills and Chris Hillman were part.
Manassas is thought of by some as a temporary supergroup side project
rather than a proper band, though as such things go, even Blind Faith
is much better-remembered than Manassas.

I'm not a devotee of Manassas myself, but that's just my rock critic
perspective on how they've been judged by history.
  

    
Judy Henske was also married to Richard Farina at one time, no?

Since I'm in Austin, where JH used to live, I should ask about Texas' 
impact on folk rock. There's clearly a powerful folk element here, and 
the annual Kerrville Folk Festival is a kind of folk mecca. I used to 
know some folk singers (Allen Damron, Jason Wakefield, Sandra Dancer) who 
were not major artists, and were less rock than folk, and there were 
always artists here who could arguably be classed as folk-rock, but might 
also be called country artists (and more recently, 'Americana.')  Richie, 
does your book follow any Texas threads?
  

    

No, it was Carolyn Hester who was married to Farina.
  

    
>Who do you think ever "under-rated" it...?
Damn shame that Manassas didn't stay together, make 10 albums...<<

David and Richie ... Sorry the for delay in getting to this. Computer
problems today. As for who I think underrated Manssas ... most
seriously Atlantic Records executives and rock critics. Atlantic never
seriously promoted the band at radio or the retail level. Stills felt
(in interviews I had with him) that Atlantic "could never get a handle
on who we were" and that the label, to a degree, withheld some
promotional muscle in order to get Stills to focus on getting CSNY back
together. As for rock critics ... in 1972, Rolling Stone ran a fairly
dismissive review, essentially contending that the only track worth
paying attention to was "Both of Us (Bound to Lose)" (co-authored by
Chris Hillman, who also sings a verse solo and in harmony with Stills).


Like you, David, I wish Manassas had been able to stay together and
make 10 albums. I *loved" that band and was lucky to see them live at
the Sacramento Civic in the fall of 1973. They opened the show by
playing virtually the entire first side (leaving out only "Both of Us")
-- powerfully ricocheting between rock, folk, country, blues and
bluegrass for close to three hours. Hillman and Stills had a special
chemistry, I feel, that drew on their strengths and minimized their
weaknesses. Also, the supporting players, from Al Perkins to Paul
Harris, were wonderful and truly versatile.

That said ... Richie, I agree with you that Manassas echoed a lot of
Stills and Hillman's previous work. But I also think there was a power
and rumble to that group (and I think it really was a group) that could
be staggering. But because of Atlantic's disinterest, the lack of
great material on the second "Manassas" album, some personal excesses
that were taking hold of certain group members, and the massive lure of
CSNY doomed Manassas' ability to hang together. 

Shifting back to "Turn! Turn! Turn!" now ... I was interested, Richie,
in how you treated Tom Rush in your book. He was a distinctive singer
who mined some early material by the likes of Joni Mitchell, Jackson
Browne and James Taylor ... but when he made some other more
folk-rock-blues forays (once using Al Kooper) he seemed to lose
direction and his career suffered. In your view, what do you think are
the most enduring aspects of the Tom Rush legacy as it relates to the
evolution of folk-rock? 
  

    

Boy my mileage varies on Tom Rush. I really liked much of the more
overtly folk-rockish material he did, particularly in collaboration with
his longtime sidekick, the excellent and underrated guitarist Trevor
Veitch. Never got the sense that any substantive damage was done to his
career (which was never all that high-profile to begin with, outside of
Tom's stronghold in the Northeast).
  

    
I see Texas's impact on folk-rock as largely post-dating the 1960s,
which is the era of folk-rock I cover in my two books, "Turn! Turn!
Turn!" and "Eight Miles High." In part because the big major labels and
biggest independent labels were based outside of Texas, there wasn't
much important folk-rock recorded in Texas in the 1960s. There were
records and artists worth noting here and there. Carolyn Hester was
from Texas and she played a role in making folk swing a little harder
in the early 1960s (and also gave Bob Dylan his first big break in the
studio by using him as an accompanist), though she didn't adapt too
well to electric rock in my opinion. Jimmy Gilmer (the same guy who had
the #1 single "Sugar Shack") did a little-known album in 1965,
"Folkbeat," with covers of songs by Dylan, Buffy Sainte-Marie, Tom
Paxton, and traditional folk songs, though it wasn't that good.
Gilmer's backup band, the Fireballs, had a Top Ten hit in 1968 with
Paxton's "Bottle of Wine," though the Fireballs usually played
pop-rock; Gilmer had learned the song from Hester.

Also, Mouse & the Traps, from Tyler, Texas, did the all-time best
mid-1960s Dylan imitation with the single "A Public Execution." Their
lead singer (Ronnie Weiss, aka "Mouse") had a real Dylanesque voice,
though more tuneful, but none of Mouse & the Traps' other singles were
as Dylan- or folk-rock-oriented. Johnny Winter did a surprisingly good
moody psychedelic-tinged Byrds-like single, "Birds Can't Row Boats."
The Sir Douglas Quintet put some folk elements into their roots-rock
stew, particularly in their Animals-like cover of the trad folk number
"In the Pines." Sahm became a friend of Dylan's too. Townes Van Zandt
made a nice, very obscure folk-rockish album in the late 1960s, "For
the Sake of the Song," which might have too many folk-country
influences for some to comfortably place it into the folk-rock camp.

Also, it's not known by some that Janis Joplin came out of the Austin
folk-blues coffeehouse scene before moving to San Francisco to become a
psychedelic rock singer with Big Brother & the Holding Company. Some
of the musicians she hung out with in Austin were in the 13th Floor
Elevators, Texas' most renowned psychedelic group. That band had some
members with folk experience, like Tommy Hall, who played the weird up
and down "jug" sounds on their sole hit, "You're Gonna Miss Me." They
also occasionally went into folk-rock territory; "Splash I," from their
first album, is a real overlooked gem of early jingle-jangle folk-rock
with trippy lyrics.

But on the whole, I don't think Texas played a notable role in early
folk-rock. The state's contributions came more into their own starting
in the 1970s, often in Austin, with the increasing blends between rock,
folk, and country music, with musicians like Jerry Jeff Walker.
(Walker is covered in "Eight Miles High," but he was based in New York
when he began his recording career in the late 1960s, not moving to
Texas until the next decade.) There were other storytelling mavericks
of note who started around then, like Jimmie Dale Gilmore, Butch
Hancock, and Terry Allen, and there have been many more up to the
present day. Those are stories that extend beyond the chronological
parameters of my books, though.
  

    
I think Tom Rush's major contribution to folk-rock was his "The Circle
Game" album, which contained songs by Joni Mitchell, James Taylor, and
Jackson Browne, at a point when none of them were known nationally. In
fact, I believe when it came out, Mitchell and Taylor's first solo
albums had yet to be released (I say "I believe" because I get
conflicting release dates from discographies); possibly "The Circle
Game" came out at around the same time as Mitchell's first album (they
both get 1968 as years of release), but I doubt Mitchell's was first.
Taylor's debut came later, and Jackson Browne's debut didn't come until
the 1970s. Anyway, like Judy Collins's records from the last half of
the 1960s, it was an important vehicle for exposing the work of
emerging folk-rock singer-songwriters, with rather lush Elektra Records
production.

I think a reason Rush didn't become bigger was that he wasn't a
prolific or major songwriter himself, though he did write some of his
own material. Artists relying mostly or wholly on interpreting work of
serious singer-songwriters for the rock album market didn't fare too
well in the 1970s, with Linda Ronstadt a notable exception.

Actually, the album Rush recorded with Al Kooper, 1966's "Take a
Little Walk With Me," predated 1968's "The Circle Game." This LP had
one side of rock'n'roll/R&B covers, and one side of folky material.
Some people really like the record; I think it's more affable than
exciting. It was notable, however, for anyone who'd become reasonably
established as a folk artist to at this point embrace all-out
rock'n'roll on record. It wasn't nearly as controversial as Dylan's
move into folk-rock, because Rush wasn't nearly as big as Dylan, nor
known as a songwriter.

Gary, if you were speculating as to whether Rush's move from folk to
folk-rock did any damage to his career, I don't think it did, in fact
with "The Circle Game" it expanded his audience considerably. Here's
what Tom himself told me about the matter:

"Folk is an umbrella that covers an awful lot of disparate audiences.
It goes all the way from Celtic to Delta blues to Cajun ... audiences
that wouldn't be caught dead in the same room with each other. Most of
the performers around the Cambridge scene were specialists. There was a
guy that did mainly Woody Guthrie tunes, and another guy would do
Delta blues, and somebody would do Appalachian ballads, and then there
were the bluegrass guys. They basically were interested in traditional
music.

"There were a few exceptions, and I think I might have been one of
them. 'Cause I would slip in a Bo Diddley tune. I was more of a
generalist. I graded the songlist, and I'd take a tune from here and a
tune from there, and mix 'em up. So my audience wasn't really coming to
me for purity. They were coming to me for, I think, good songs done in
an enthusiastic way. And diversity. When I extended the diversity
another notch, it didn't upset them too much. My audience didn't seem
to be particularly pissed off [about him going electric], in general.
Or at least, I wasn't hearing about [it] if they were."

At leat one critic was pissed. "Well, there goes another virgin in
folk music," wrote Ralph Earle in his negative review of the LP in
Boston Broadside.

I think Rush's career suffered from his departure from Elektra
Records, which seemed to be nurturing his development as a recording
artist very well. "The Circle Game" was by far his biggest success up
to that point, yet Elektra didn't renew his contract, and he went to
Columbia. Tom told me that he felt Elektra was pouring more of its
resources into hard rock groups than singer-songwriters at that point,
enticed by the success of the Doors, Elektra's first huge triumph in
the pop market. He said the label offered to renew, but on the same
financial terms, which he found stingy. Elektra president Jac Holzman
told me that one reason he didn't make more of an effort to keep Rush
was that he felt that "The Circle Game" was going to be about as good
as it was going to get with Rush.
  

    

Thought this might be of interest here:

I had an email forwarded to me this morning, which apparently originated
with a friend/associate of Tim Rose. The original sender, who I don't
know, is named Miranda Ward.

She asks the help of anyone who knew Tim in spreading the news of his
passing, which has evidently not gotten a lot of attention. Ms. Ward
expressed surprise that several old friends of Tim's had not gotten the
news until she contacted them.

She also encourages fans to send their condolences to Tim's family via
the message board at his official website: www.timrose.net

Tim's funeral was this morning in London, BTW.
  

    

Richie slipped in.

>Gary, if you were speculating as to whether Rush's move from folk to
>folk-rock did any damage to his career

I wasn't speculating myself, so much as responding to Dave's speculation
in post #160 that the move may have had some damage.

I certainly agree that Tom's Elektra stuff is where the bulk of his
reputation will always reside, but I think the Columbia material is well
worth hearing -- I was particularly fond of "Merrimack County" when it
came out, but also remember good stuff on his eponymous Columbia debut,
"The Wrong End Of The Rainbow" and "Ladies Love Outlaws."
  

    
>good stuff on his eponymous Columbia debut,
"The Wrong End Of The Rainbow" and "Ladies Love Outlaws."<<

I agree with you there, Gary, And from a commercial/career impact
standpoint, you're right, there was not that much damage to be done. I
don't know why I headed down that road with Rush, who was never that
high-profile (as you pointed out) and these albums (and other albums
from that era) did not serve to change that fact despite their musical
merits.
  

    
So sorry to hear about Tim Rose, as it was HIS version of Morning
Dew I first heard all those years ago.
  

    
Just t put the elektra chronology into perspective, The Doors' big hit with
"Light My Fire" was in 1967, maybe six months (more or less) before they
released Rush's The Circle Game album.

The difference between the early Dylan folk-rock and the rock songs on "Take
a Little Walk With Me" was that Rush was doing old songs by established rock
ers like Bo Diddley. It was seen as kind of a goof, rather than a shift in
his artistic evolution. Sort of like the versions of "Little Darlin'" and
other doo-wop songs that Joan Baez did in her concerts.
  

    
Thanks for correcting my glitch, Gary, re. Henske/Hester...

I found an email address for a long lost high school compadre the other 
day, and when I emailed him, he wrote back that he remembered me as the 
guy who played Tim Rose for him... that would be the same album we've 
been talking about, with "Hey, Joe" and "Morning Dew" on it. That was 
also my first exposure to those songs, though it wasn't long before I had 
"Dew" via the Dead and "Joe" via Hendrix, Love, the Byrds, and myself in 
the shower.  I hadn't thought about Rose in ages and wondered if he was 
still around. I didn't think to do my usual Google search, though... til 
now, and here's his official web page: http://www.timrose.net/

Great recent photo and news about his death.

I also read in a review on Amazon that he influenced Nick Cave, which 
isn't surprising how that I think of it.
  

    
Richie, I don't think Janis hung much with the 13th Floor Elevators in
Austin, because they were from San Marcos. Her scene was the folk
scene at Threadgill's, a filling station far north in Austin (well, it
was far north back then) that sold beer and had a room where folkies
would gather. Mr. Threadgill himself was very tolerant of them because
they indulged his passion for Jimmie Rodgers tunes. About the only
other rocker who came out of that group was Powell St. John, who wound
up in the Mother Earth circle with Tracey Nelson and -- whoops! another
Austinite -- John "Toad" Andrews. Although I wasn't there, and almost
none of it was recorded, it seems to me there was a slight folk-rock
movement in the Austin scene at that time, in that bands like the
Conqueroo and Hub City Movers did folk songs electric: "Codine" was a
big fave. The whole thing dispersed as the drug crackdowns got more
violent, and almost all these Austinites moved (at least for a while)
to San Francisco. 
  

    
A couple of additional thoughts on Manassas prompted by David's #153
post and Richie's #157 post ... the only references I've ever seen to
the Manassas 1972 double album as "essential in any collection" and
"one of the best ever" is by devoted fans of Stills and CSN(&Y) --few
of whom are rock critics. The Manassas double album has never showed up
on any Top 100 Album lists (even in such publications as MOJO and
UNCUT) that I've seen. As Richie stated, the band is not
well-remembered by critics or history. Manassas receives scant mention,
if any, in most retrospectives of the music of the early '70s. It is
left, then, to loyal fans to keep the memory of Manassas alive and
articulate the merits of the powerful folk/rock/country/blues music
that fills the band's first album.

Turning back to "Turn! Turn! Turn!" ... the character of the artists'
vocals is one aspect of the evolution of folk-rock that is important
but has not been discussed fully in this topic as yet. Considering the
vocal styles of the likes of Donovan, Dylan, the Byrds, Buffalo
Springfield, the Mamas and Papas, Beau Brummels and others leads to a
general question ... what are some of the keys to the most memorable
lead vocals and harmony blends that rose up during the '60s folk-rock
boom? Also, what separates a folk-rock vocal from, say, a pop-rock  or
blues-rock approach?  
  

    
Heh - I would definitely say Papa Threadgill was tolerant... his affinity 
with musicians, however freaky, was quite visible. And he let his hair 
grow pretty long!  Other Texas folkies played there over the years, 
including the Lubbock brigade (Butch Hancock, Jimmie Gilmore - already 
mentioned - and the great Jesse Taylor).

I'm thinking of some other folk threads... Ike Ritter, who played with 
bands like the Hub City Movers, Ramon, Ramon, and the Four Daddy-os, and 
Shiva's Headband, played with Lucinda Williams, too, when she was playing 
Austin bars with pickup bands. And he played quite a bit with Calvin 
Russell, and was part of Joe "King" Carrasco's band, El Molino. Musicians 
in Austin were eclectic, played folk, blues and psychedelic with equal 
enthusiasm... so it's hard to pin down which was which.
  

    
(Dave slipped... I was responding to Ed's post.)
  

    
Ed, I might have been too liberal in my phrasing when I wrote about
Janis Joplin, "Some of the musicians she hung out with in Austin were
in the 13th Floor Elevators." But there does seem to have been some
interaction. In Alice Echols's 1999 bio of Joplin, she wrote, "[In
spring 1966] Janis left Port Arthur to resume her life as a folksinger,
and yet almost as soon as she arrived in Austin she was thinking about
joining a rock band, the 13th Floor Elevators. Tommy Hall of the
Elevators, however, didn't think including her was a good idea, because
the group wasn't a blues band. Besides, the 13th Floor Elevators
already had Roky Erickson, a vocalist so fiery he 'didn't simply sing a
song,' writes one critic, 'he became them...It was like he was
screaming to get outside of his body.' Janis was influenced by
Erickson's approach, but the band's commitment to freaking freely
probably put her off." According to her "Notes" section, the story
about Tommy Hall not wanting to include her in the band was based on an
interview she did with Hall himself.

Joplin definitely did know Powell St. John well, and while he wasn't a
member of the Elevators, he wrote a few songs that the band recorded
on their albums.
  

    
I wanted to say a little about Tim Rose as he recently passed on and
some readers of this topic might not be too familiar with his work.
Rose really only made one significant album, the self-titled "Tim Rose"
(on Columbia, 1967). Like many LPs in those days, it was kind of
cobbled together from several sessions, several of which (including
"Hey Joe") had previously been released as singles. When I interviewed
him, he was still a little dissatisfied with the record, noting that
some of the material (notably a cover of Barry Mann and Cynthia Weil's
"I'm Gonna Be Strong," a 1964 hit for Gene Pitney) and session
musicians were not of his choice. He was also unhappy with the
production, saying that the producer didn't make time to mix it, and
Tim had to mix it himself.

Nonetheless, the best of the album's an interesting combination of
folk, pop, and blues, managing to make Rose's truly gravelly voice an
asset rather than a hindrance. In addition to "Hey Joe" and "Morning
Dew," the standout track is his apocalyptic rendering of the nuclear
holocaust warning "Come Away, Melinda" (co-writen by Fred Hellerman of
the Weavers, and previously recorded in a daintier version by Judy
Collins on her 1963 "#3" album). And the cover of "I'm Gonna Be Strong"
is actually pretty good, despite Rose's reservations about doing the
tune.

Although Rose was unhappy with some of the musicians that Columbia
tried to team him with, he did praise the work of Felix Pappalardi, who
played piano on "Morning Dew," and drummer Bernard Purdie, who played
on countless rock and soul sessions in the 1960s. Felix Pappalardi had
an interesting auxiliary role in folk-rock as a versatile session
musician for Fred Neil, Ian & Sylvia, Richard & Mimi Farina, Tim
Hardin, Tom Paxton, and Tim Rose; he also produced the Youngbloods'
early work (the Youngbloods wanted him to join the band, but he
declined). He's most known, though, for producing Cream and playing in
Mountain.

Rose, interestingly, told me that prior to his Columbia album, he'd
done some unreleased tracks with producer Bob Johnston in Nashville. He
placed the date in 1965, which would have predated Johnston's
Nashville sessions with Bob Dylan for "Blonde on Blonde" in 1966. He
said CBS exec Clive Davis wouldn't release these.

Prior to moving into folk-rock, Rose was in the Big Three, a folk trio
that also included Cass Elliot and James Hendricks. Elliot and
Hendricks went on to the Mugwumps, the very early folk-rock group that
also included Zal Yanovsky and Denny Doherty, and did some recording
for Warners in 1964. Rose told me he was the member of the Big Three
pushing to add electric instruments (the second of the Big Three
albums, released circa early 1964, has some very low-key electric
guitar and drums), but that Cass at that time was resistant to it.

Rose summarized his stint with Columbia to me thusly: "I wasn't a rock
and roller. And yet I wasn't folky. That was the problem that CBS had.
Clive [Davis] finally told me in 1968. He says, Tim, I know what
you're not. I don't know what you are. And we just don't know how to
market [you]. He said that in his office. What am I supposed to do? He
said, well, I'll either give you your release, or take some time and
make another album for us and see if we can do something. I know you've
made some great records, but we haven't been able to sell 'em. We
don't know what it is. It doesn't seem to fit."