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Post by Rick Henry on Jan 24, 2007 13:06:23 GMT -5
Here it is round two of the first segment of The 70's Game 2007.
This round features the hits "Shannon" by Henry Gross and "Wildfire" by Michael Martin Murphey.
Which one do you want to send to the semi-finals?
"Shannon" by Henry Gross - This song reached #6 in March 1976 and was certified Gold for selling over one million copies. Henry Gross wrote this song about the passing of Beach Boy Carl Wilson's Irish Setter of the same name. Henry Gross toured with the Beach Boys for a short period of time.
"Wildfire" by Michael Martin Murphey - Reached #3 in May 1975 and was certified Gold for selling over one million copies. This song was also a big hit on the Country Music charts as well as a #1 Adult Contemporary hit. Murphey's dreamt this beautiful tune and he woke up and wrote this tale about a mysterious dream horse on the vast American heartland prairie. members of the Dirt Band sang harmony vocals on this song.
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Post by YesterdayOnceMore on Jan 24, 2007 13:33:07 GMT -5
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Post by wisejester7 on Jan 24, 2007 14:22:55 GMT -5
"Shannon" gets my vote. The Story of "Shannon" by Henry Gross When I was twenty-one years old a wonderful girl came into my life by the name of Kathy Reinmann. As if having her in my life as a friend, a wife and a friend again for the next twenty three years, until she died of lung cancer five years ago this coming August, was not enough, she brought along with her into my heart her two year old Irish Setter, Shannon. She was an uncannily human dog whose ability to manipulate her human counterparts cannot be understated. I was touring around the country quite a lot in 1975 promoting an album called HENRY GROSS, the one with the yellow cover on A&M Records. I had the pleasure of doing long strings of dates with a group whose music always inspired me, The Beach Boys. Carl Wilson, arguably the finest solo voice in the group, was warm and welcoming from the very first show I played with them on a freezing cold day at the University of New Hampshire. After getting to know each other we realized we shared a love for much of the same music and a passion for fine vintage guitars. On a break from touring, while I was in Los Angeles, Carl invited me to his house to spend a day talking guitars, cars and rock & roll. While he was preparing lunch his two Alaskan husky dogs reached up on the counter and inhaled our food. I told Carl, while admiring the military perfection of the raid executed by his huskies, that I had an Irish Setter at home named Shannon. He was quite moved as he told me that he had an Irish Setter named Shannon that had been killed only recently when hit by a car. We spent the rest of the day jamming and driving around Carl's world which as a friend and to be honest a Beach Boy's fanatic was a thrill. When I returned to New York City, where I lived, I began work on my second A&M album, PLUG ME INTO SOMETHING. A few weeks later just as we were about to master the finished album I was sitting on my bed with Shannon strumming my guitar trying to write a song when I was disturbed by the loud bass sounds from the Latin music blasting from the apartment above me. Rather than complain I made an amazing discovery. If I tried to play records of my own choice I could drown out the intrusive bass sounds but was unable to concentrate. But I found that when I played an environments record called "The Ultimate Seashore" I could drown out the bass and have a pleasing and relaxing background sound that didn't interfere with my writing. In a matter of minutes with the ocean sounds guiding me, and my 1964 Gibson Hummingbird acoustic in my hands, my thoughts drifted to Carl, The Beach Boys and with a glance at my girl Shannon, the indescribable sadness that losing such a beloved partner in life must be. The song seemed to write itself taking no more than ten minutes and with almost no cross outs on the paper. I made a tape of it on my giant Sony cassette recorder and sent it off to Carl. I was hoping to stop the presses and record it for PLUG ME INTO SOMETHING which Carl had already sung on, adding background vocals to the opening song, ONE MORE TOMORROW, but it was too late. I had to wait for the next album to record it. I always wished I could have had Carl sing backgrounds on SHANNON but conflicting schedules dictated it wasn't meant to be. I believed after it was recorded for my RELEASE album, that it was destined to be a hit and lobbied hard for it to be the first single. You see, the man upstairs who had played the loud Latin music, beginning the entire chain of events, came down when he heard me playing mixes over and over to decide which I liked. However, rather than hearing the expected complaints, he said he loved the sound of the record and wanted to know where he could buy a copy. I reasoned if a salsa music fan who spoke little English loved the record through the ceiling, Shannon, Kathy and I had a hit on our hands. Fortunately, history and lady luck proved me right. And that is the true story of the song SHANNON. Lyrics: SHANNON WORDS AND MUSIC BY HENRY GROSS @1976 BLENDINGWELL, ASCAP ANOTHER DAY IS AT END MAMA SAYS SHE'S TIRED AGAIN NO ONE CAN EVEN BEGIN TO TELL HER I HARDLY KNOW WHAT TO SAY BUT MAYBE IT'S BETTER THAT WAY IF PAPA WERE HERE I'M SURE HE'D TELL HER SHANNON IS GONE I HOPE SHE'S DRIFTING OUT TO SEA SHE ALWAYS LOVED TO SWIM AWAY MAYBE SHE'LL FIND AN ISLAND WITH A SHADY TREE JUST LIKE THE ONE IN OUR BACKYARD MAMA TRIES HARD TO PRETEND THINGS WILL GET BETTER AGAIN SOMEHOW SHE'S KEEPING IT ALL INSIDE HER BUT FINALLY THE TEARS FILL OUR EYES AND I KNOW THAT SOMEWHERE TONIGHT SHE KNOWS HOW MUCH WE REALLY MISS HER SHANNON IS GONE I HOPE SHE'S DRIFTING OUT TO SEA SHE ALWAYS LOVED TO SWIM AWAY MAYBE SHE'LL FIND AN ISLAND WITH A SHADY TREE JUST LIKE THE ONE IN OUR BACKYARD JUST LIKE THE ONE IN OUR BACKYARD
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Post by Rick Henry on Jan 24, 2007 15:45:57 GMT -5
Oh wow! Very nice Wisejester7, thank you for "The Story Of Shannon". Great read.
I will come back tomorrow with my vote.
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Post by ps11932 on Jan 24, 2007 17:29:05 GMT -5
Well, I was going to vote for 'Wildfire"- I think it was a great song and I have vivid memories of it being of some solace during a rather rough period- but after reading WJ7's account- wow is right! The experiences and talent on this forum never ceases to amaze me. The lyrics of "Shannon" could provoke a lot of thought. And how can you not vote for your own team?
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Post by smoothie2 on Jan 25, 2007 1:06:24 GMT -5
8-)Very impressive reading wisejester!... Like Shannon, but more fond of W-fire...one reason being I think of a time when on Johnny Carson show..M. Martin Murphy sang it w/ J. Denver and of course, John Denver will like Karen always be in my heart, their over the top voices, clear pristine and very soulful. Their lives devoted to music and both cut off at fairly young ages.
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Post by Rick Henry on Jan 25, 2007 3:35:00 GMT -5
I enjoyed reading the biography on "Shannon" so much that I thought it would be nice to have the biography of "Wildfire". This song also has an interesting story.
In 1972, A&M released the debut album by Murphey entitled Geronimo’s Cadillac. The title song led Michael into social and political action for Native Americans, though Murphey is a confirmed man of Irish heritage.
Between the right players (including Dirt Band members then living in Colorado, as did Murphey for a few years), great songs and the perfect environment - Colorado’s Caribou Ranch - Blue Sky / Night Thunder was a landmark album. In May, 1975 Murphey’s story song, "Wildfire," reached No. 1 on the Radio and Records charts, No.3 on Billboard's Pop Chart, and No. 1 on all Adult Contemporary Charts, giving the artist vast commercial exposure. Musically, it stood out, due, in part, to the unique harmonies supplied by the Dirt Band’s Jeff Hanna and Jimmy Ibbotson, and the beautiful piano intro based on a classical piece by Russian composer Alexander Scriabin, played by master jazz musician Jac Murphy. Through the influence of Jac Murphy( no relation to Michael), Murphey was experimenting with jazz in combination with rock, pop, folk, and country. His band at the time featured high-profile jazz musicians like Harry Wilkinson, Michael McKinney( who later played with Michael Jackson ), and many other jazz studio muscians. Just as Bob Wills combined jazz with country in the 1930's to 1950's, Murphey was working with a complex mixture that sparked a whole new sound. As members of the superstar band Lonestar put it, " Murphey's Wildfire was one of the songs that inspired our sound." All of the members of Alabama have echoed that statement.
Lyrically, Murphey sees "Wildfire" as his finest moment as a songwriter, penned out of sheer inspiration, without any thought to formula. He wrote it years before he recorded it, just after he had left LA for the California mountains, never to return to city living again to this day. Perhaps the song reflected Murphey's longing for the mountains and plains of his Western lifestyle boyhood."It was written in the middle of the night," he told The Performing Songwriter. "I dreamed it and woke up and wrote the lyrics down. All the things that make for the best songs are the things that come out of your dreams and unconscious. I was sleeping on Larry Cansler's floor at his bungalow in Los Angeles, having driven down from my cabin in the San Gabriel Mountains to write songs. I ran upstairs, woke up Larry (and his poor wife-a working girl who got up early !), and he came down to the piano and expanded my melody. We finished around dawn."
"I didn’t understand what the song was about until years later," he continued. "It’s all wrapped up in my dreams as a child of getting out of the Texas suburbs and living on my grandfather’s or uncle’s ranches, and being a cowboy and owning my own horse. And also being steeped in the storytelling tradition of the Southwest that I had gotten from my grandfather Ed, who never would watch TV or listen to the radio. He would much rather get everyone together and sit around and tell stories and jokes."
His grandfather told him the legend of the ghost horse that unconsciously prompted the writing of "Wildfire," although he didn’t recall that it came from his grandfather’s storytelling until his mother reminded him years after he had written the song.
"There have been legends about ghost horses, especially in the Western folk tradition," says Murphey. "I had heard these all my life, but one night in Los Angeles I woke from a dream with the name Wildfire and these images in my head. The song came from that. A girl and her pony were both lost one winter, but they reappear occasionally to help westerners. It’s all about the dream of freedom and escape." At least in imagination, Murphey had returned to the heart of the American West- prophetic of what was yet to come in his life.
I still haven't voted yet, but will come back to do so.
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Post by GoodOldDreams on Jan 25, 2007 15:49:44 GMT -5
Thanks to WJ7 and Rick for the interesting, detailed research on the sources of inspiration and backgrounds for these songs.
I have always appreciated the poetic imagery conveyed in the lyrics of "Wildfire" and its melody, particularly the lonesome whistling flute-like/keyboard synthesizer sound in the instrumental passages at the intro and between the first two verses. (Does anyone know what instrument that was?) My vote goes to Michael Martin Murphey's song.
In "Shannon," Henry Gross did some perfectly nice vocal leads, but his falsetto in the refrain seemed somewhat out of place — maybe he was trying to imitate his mother's voice?
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Post by Rick Henry on Jan 28, 2007 12:47:03 GMT -5
My choice in this round is Michael martin Wmurphey's "Wildfire". I'm hooked right at the beginning with the beautiful keyboard in the opening line. Murphey is an outstanding vocalist with a range of soul and emotion in his performance.
I also like "Shannon" - but "Wildfire" gets it for me this time.
The winner in this round is Michael Martin Murphey's "Wildfire" - this song will go to the semi-finals along with "Nothing From Nothing" by Billy Preston.
This round is officially closed.
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