The Forrest Of The Mind
“The tragedy is not that things are broken. The tragedy is that things are not mended again.”― Alan Paton
And the rain keeps coming down…
I found out last week that sometime in the hinder part of 2022, musician Paul Parrish passed away. His passing did not spark any sort of tribute, article or obituary and his wikipedia page still uses the present tense in his biography (which is usually one of the first places that marks a passing by changing the ISes to WASes in the person’s article). Instead, barring a few random mentions on social media by folks who were close to him, the last part of his life…the event of his passing…has slipped by unnoticed.
Paul Parrish is one of those fascinating participants in the music industry, whose story is oh so interesting, pocked with opportunity and small wins, while never achieving a lasting fame or public legacy. But there is a true career to uncover with captivating music to discover.
My first encounter with the music of Paul Parrish came by chance…during those early years of ebay when you could bid on a record that looked interesting…and more often than not win it into the collection. The prize in this case was Parrish’s legendary 1968 MGM debut record, The Forest of My Mind (actually on an MGM subsidiary label Music Factory operated by Tom Wilson, the producer who worked on seminal Bob Dylan and Velvet Underground records). With a color-rich cover showcasing his disembodied yet hopeful-eyed head surrounded by miniature cut-out animals, soldiers and other characters, The Forest of My Mind is a looking-glasses wonderland— a reverb-drenched string-filled romp through the sweeter side of psychedelia…with Parrish playing the part of a more laid back and mushroomy Mikey Dolenz with sweet pop songs that might have popped up on one of later Monkees records. The record was made in Detroit, proudly stating so on its back cover, co-arranged by one of the Funk Brothers, Dennis Coffey, and including a cast of Detroit R&B musicians, pulling off a radically different vibe than what they were normally jamming.
The record is a classic of the period, and like many others of its ilk, went unnoticed at the time. But at the same time Parrish found success as a songwriter, writing among other things, the song Time, which is the first song off of Helen Reddy’s debut 1971 self-titled record, the title song for the motion picture Fools entitled A Poem I Wrote For Your Hair, which was performed by Kenny Rogers and the First Edition, as well as King of a Rainy Country for Rare Earth’s first platter. He sang and arranged the Brady Bunch theme for the first season of the show along with the members of another band Paul worked regularly with, The Peppermint Trolley Company (you can hear Paul on one of their groovier singles, 9 O’Clock Business Man). He had just enough going for him to get signed to Warner Bros. Records in 1971 where he released Songs, a more straight-forward light-rock follow-up to Forest featuring his version of A Poem I Wrote For Your Hair, which unfortunately also did not find a connection with the public.
Yet he was still able to find another major label to bankroll a lavish production. In 1977, he released Song For A Young Girl, this time on ABC records, featured an all-star cast of 70s studio rats like Jim Seals (Seals and Crofts), David Hungate (Toto), percussionist Gene Estes (who played with Zappa), Ikette Venetta Fields and other sensational twenty-feet-(maybe more in this case)-from-stardom backup singers like Clydie King, Maxine Willard and Julia Tillman. It was a major production with some great Parrish compositions…that was released to crickets. Paul never found huge success, but he maintained a career in the dog-eat-dog world of the music industry, reinventing himself in the 80s as part of the duo Parrish & Toppano before dropping out of sight (or at least, ceasing to release any new recordings). He lived to see (and work on) a reissue of Forrest of My Mind, on CD in 2014 and on LP two years later, as the legend of his one great record grew amongst record collectors and psychedelic music enthusiasts. It is a perfect morning record that has been getting sporadic play around the house ever since it came in the mail.
On such a rainy and windy dayas today, with the trees rustling daydreams and dewdrops, the quiet, sweet and watery world of Forrest of My Mind is pure ear candy, maybe served with a hot beverage and some incense and peppermint schnapps. All in remembrance of Paul Parrish, RIP.
The Great Radio of Phil Schaap
The word Masterclass (or is that two words MASTER and CLASS) is bandied about pretty damn freely these days since the rise of the website of the same name. Any drunk thinks he can teach a master class. But the word fits in the following sentence: listening to Grammy-winning producer and writer Phil Schaap’s radio programs, where the late scholar digs deep in the history of Jazz, of Jazz musicians, of eras and styles of Jazz, is like taking a MASTERCLASS in the given subject at hand. His students have put together this incredible archive for all of us to listen to.
UK'S ROYAL MAIL HONORS IRON MAIDEN WITH SPECIAL STAMPS
What is next? Cradle of Filth? Venom?
Shriek of the Week: Song Thrush
Another edition of one of my favorite newsletters….
Hidden Gems of the NLS Collection: Béla Bartók’s “Allegro Barbaro”
The Library of Congress’ National Library Service for the Blind and Print Disabled have such an interesting collection that they curate well through online blogposts like this one. “Allegro Barbaro is underrepresented in many music history books. Perhaps this is because both Stravinsky’s The Right of Spring and Allegro Barbaro were written in 1911, and today both represent revolutionary breakthroughs…Why would Bartók use the title Allegro Barbaro? Its ‘barbaric’ title arose as the composer’s reaction to being called a “barbarian” in the French press.”
“Brazil has released a list of the artworks that were damaged as thousands of protesters stormed government buildings in the capital of Brasília to protest the presidency of Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, who was sworn in on January 1.”
Racine students collecting cereal for world record attempt
Oh yeah…..
Last Words
By: Philip Levine
If the shoe fell from the other foot
who would hear? If the door
opened onto a pure darkness
and it was no dream? If your life
ended the way a book ends
with half a blank page and the survivors
gone off to Africa or madness?
If my life ended in late spring
of 1964 while I walked alone
back down the mountain road?
I sing an old song to myself. I study
the way the snow remains, gray
and damp, in the deep shadows of the firs.
I wonder if the bike is safe hidden
just off the highway. Up ahead
the road, black and winding, falls
away, and there is the valley where
I lived half of my life, spectral
and calm. I sigh with gratitude,
and then I feel an odd pain rising
through the back of my head,
and my eyes go dark. I bend forward
and place my palms on something rough,
the black asphalt or a field of stubble,
and the movement is that of the penitent
just before he stands to his full height
with the knowledge of his enormity.
For that moment which will survive
the burning of all the small pockets
of fat and oil that are the soul,
I am the soul stretching into
the furthest reaches of my fingers
and beyond, glowing like ten candles
in the vault of night for anyone
who could see, even though it is
12:40 in the afternoon and I
have passed from darkness into sunlight
so fierce the sweat streams down
into my eyes. I did not rise.
A wind or a stray animal or a group
of kids dragged me to the side
of the road and turned me over
so that my open eyes could flood heaven.
My clothes went skittering down
the road without me, ballooning
out into any shape, giddy
with release. My coins, my rings,
the keys to my house shattered
like ice and fell into the mountain
thorns and grasses, little bright points
that make you think there is magic
in everything you see. No, it can't
be, you say, for someone is speaking
calmly to you in a voice you know.
Someone alive and confident has put
each of these words down exactly
as he wants them on the page.
You have lived through years
of denial, of public lies, of death
falling like snow on any head
it chooses. You're not a child.
You know the real thing. I am
here, as I always was, faithful
to a need to speak even when all
you hear is a light current of air
tickling your ear. Perhaps.
But what if that dried bundle
of leaves and dirt were not dirt
and leaves but the spent wafer
of a desire to be human? Stop the car,
turn off the engine, and stand
in the silence above your life. See
how the grass mirrors fire, how
a wind rides up the hillside
steadily toward you until it surges
into your ears like breath coming
and going, released from its bondage
to blood or speech and denying nothing.’
HAPPY BIRTHDAY TO SETH MASKET!!!!
'Course, nothing is as brilliant as a Song Thrush!
Astonishingly brilliant poem!
And of course, Keith Emerson (and Emerson, Lake & Palmer) popularized Allegro Barbaro for a whole generation with their mammoth-sounding version called "The Barbarian" - the first track on the first Emerson Lake & Palmer record (released 20 November 1970), blowing the mind of many a youngster as myself, sitting in the room of the friend who had the truly outrageous stereo system of the day, making the very walls reverberate with joyful noise! Fucking awesome!!! (It must be said that, my mother being a piano teacher, I was familiar with the piano version, so ELP's had the advantage of familiarity when I first heard theirs.) My god, it had the outrageous state-of-the-art studio perfectionism and complete heaviness of the first Sabbath records, while being complex and classically virtuosic. Brilliant and a half!