Some eccentric flavors. I am turning the dial back before the Internet and, really, before the video age. There was not much video recorded by any of these, which is a real shame.
Ry Cooder. His “Paradise and Lunch” should be on any top ten list of American folk blues albums.
Leon Redbone. Master of the craft of throat tromnet. (Not shown in this video – he probably needs to be a future Music Wars segment on his own.)
Tom Tom Club. Heads alumni. Goshalmighty did I love this group. After the Talking Heads dissolved Tom Tom Club toured for a few years in the early 1990s.
Happy The Man. Any of y’all remember these guys? An incredible 70s progressive band. Almost nothing they did made it to video.
Root Boy Slim and the Sex Change Band. I saw Root Boy lots of times in the 1970s, there have not been many like him before or since. Not a lot of Root made it to video, either, unfortunately. Classics were “Boogie Till You Puke” and “You Broke My Mood Ring.”
I still don’t know what diddy wah diddy means.
More good stuff! I’ve known Stanley Whitaker from Happy the Man for years. He has two rare forms of cancer now with no health insurance. There was just a big benefit in Baltimore that I couldn’t make it to.
And Leon Redbone is awesome. I always break out his Christmas album at this time of year. His version of Frosty the Snowman is the best!
I’m sorry to hear that about Stanley Whitaker. We saw them almost by accident performing at the State in Falls Church some years ago, maybe around 1999, but I have not followed very closely nor heard much really since the late 70s. I still have the first two LPs. Thank you for filling me in, I will try and keep an ear out for future benefit events.
BTW here is a great discography:
http://www.angelfire.com/wy/jbguitar/
We were fortunate to have such an excellent group of musicians playing locally, albeit for a very short time.
Happy The Man and the Dixie Dreggs were the two premier Progressive Jam Bands of thta era. I was and stll am a Huge Dreggs fan. Both groups were as talented as they come.