I just listened to Tea for The Tillerman again and while I'm quite sure now it's the album which got me involved in Cat Stevens and taking an interest in old music, I didn't quite give me the same sensations that I once had. I mean it's a great album and has some great songs on it, and while I'm sure now this was the album which launched me to buy another Cat Stevens album that I mentioned above, I really have been stuck on that other Cat Stevens album which is of all his 60s music! But yeah I always remember grabbing the tape, fixing it and "Where Do The Children Play" just hit me like a ton of bricks - I thought there's a great song! But what I find troubling about Tea For The Tillerman is how much different it is from stuff he was doing 12 months before that. I mean Tea For The Tillerman came out Nov 1970 and in 1969 he had done "Where Are You" & "The View From The Top", which is just so different - it's like there's a missing link between that that the stuff he did on Tea For The Tillerman.
Who knows CP/M? Many artists do that, have a certain sound and then "Boom", they change to a different sound, either consciously or just experimenting with their musical roots to see where it takes them next.
Who knows CP/M? Many artists do that, have a certain sound and then "Boom", they change to a different sound, either consciously or just experimenting with their musical roots to see where it takes them next.
Yeah many artists do that a bit, but with Cat Stevens it's like he's changed his sound without warning, and in doing so was still being successful as a Singer/Songwriter. At least with other groups you can hear some sort of progression happening between genres - anyhow it's all history now!
"Wild World" is what got me into Cat Stevens to begin with, but as much as I enjoyed that album and its followup, the one I think of as his creative peak was Catch Bull at Four. Every song on it is strong, and it hangs together as a whole very well. "O Caritas" is a favorite, and the only song I insist on singing along with, when I don't even know the language.
I also think his virtually unknown album Numbers is very worthwhile, too. It's subtitled "A Pythagorean Theorem Tale." It opens with "Whistlestar," a very catchy little instrumental:
I will listen to "Catch Bull At Four" later, it's been a while since I played that album. That is the one downfall of collecting music for decades, your library becomes so large it is sometimes easy to forget artists along the way.
Yeah, yeah, yeah Sorry, but I've had to spend more time than usual looking for a job since I'm at the end of my unemployment insurance benefits. That, and the honey-do list is getting added to daily. And I've rediscovered my love of playing guitar. So there.
Tell me about it. I just rediscovered my bluegrass and jazz collections as I continue my LP-to-CD project. I hadn't heard them in probably 10 or 15 years or even longer.
Yeah, yeah, yeah Sorry, but I've had to spend more time than usual looking for a job since I'm at the end of my unemployment insurance benefits. That, and the honey-do list is getting added to daily. And I've rediscovered my love of playing guitar. So there.
Tell me about it. I just rediscovered my bluegrass and jazz collections as I continue my LP-to-CD project. I hadn't heard them in probably 10 or 15 years or even longer.
Funny you should mention Rice. When I was working my way through my bluegrass collection I was amazed to see how many of his albums I had. Between his "solo" albums, his Tony Rice Unit albums, and his appearances with David Grisman and others, I must have 14 or 15 records. Heck, just the Unit alone accounts for 5 of them. I'd forgotten all about them.
Got to see him play live when he was officially in the Grisman Quintet, at a concert at Northwestern University, with Steve Goodman and Jethro Burns opening for them. Fantastic concert.
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