Ik zag de band op het Holland Pop festival in het Kralingse Bos ,eind Juni 1970.Grappig dat deze opname twee weken later is gemaakt.Ik kan me van het optreden in Rotterdam niet al te veel meer herrinerren,maar het gelijknamige album is nog steeds een van de mooiste uit mijn verzameling.
It's a Beautiful Day is an American band formed in San Francisco, California, in 1967, featuring vocalist Pattie Santos along with violinist David LaFlamme and his wife, Linda LaFlamme, on keyboards.
David LaFlamme, a former soloist with the Utah Symphony Orchestra, had previously been in the band Orkustra, and unusually, played a five-string violin. The other members were Linda LaFlamme (keyboards), Pattie Santos (vocals), Hal Wagenet (guitar), Mitchell Holman (bass) and Val Fuentes (drums). Although they were one of the earliest and most important San Francisco bands to emerge from 1967's social phenomenon Summer of Love, the band never quite achieved the success of contemporaries such as Grateful Dead, Jefferson Airplane and Santana, with whom they had connections. The band created a unique blend of rock, jazz, folk, classical and world beat styles during the initial seven years it was officially together.(Wikipedia)
White Bird
David and Linda wrote the song in Seattle, where they were living. Said
David: "The song describes the picture Linda and I saw as we looked out
this little window in this attic. We had a little Wurlitzer portable
piano sitting right in the well of this window, and I'd sit and work on
songs. When you hear lines like, 'the leaves blow across the long black
road to the darkened sky and its rage,' it's describing what I was
seeing out the window. Where the 'white bird' thing came from: We were
like caged birds in that attic. We had no money, no transportation, the
weather was miserable. We were just barely getting by on a very small
food allowance provided to us. It was quite an experience, but it was
very creative in a way." (thanks, Garry - Anchorage, AK)
Hot Summer Day
By the time the group members returned to San Francisco they were broke
and frustrated at Katz's attempts to manipulate their career. In
desperation, they began playing at a few clubs without Katz's approval.
The band gradually began to gain some recognition and earn money. The
band got its first big break when offered a chance to open for
Cream at the
Oakland Coliseum, in
Oakland,
California, on October 4, 1968. Around this time, the band first began a
long process of trying to disentangle themselves from Katz.(Wikipedia)
The Dolphin Song
July 5, 1970, the band played the (second) Atlanta International Pop
Festival in Byron, GA to an estimated 250,000 people. Linda sang lead on
"White Bird", "Hot Summer Day" and "The Dolphin Song". The band had a
regional radio hit with "Don and Dewey". By later that year, the
original lineup of the band had changed somewhat; the LaFlammes had
split up and Linda left the band, replaced by Fred Webb. The following
album,
Marrying Maiden, released in 1970, was their most successful in the charts, reaching number 28 in the U.S. (their only Top 40 placing)
[2] and number 45 in the U.K.
[3] In that year, the band also performed at the Holland Pop Festival at the Kralingse Bos in
Rotterdam,
Netherlands, and at the
Bath Festival of Blues and Progressive Music.(Wikipedia)
The band's debut album,
It's a Beautiful Day, was produced by David LaFlamme in
Los Angeles, California, and released by
Columbia Records
in 1969. It features tracks such as "White Bird", "Hot Summer Day" and
"Time Is". The album reached number 47 in the U.S. charts
and number 58 in the UK.
The theme from the song "Bombay Calling" was later used, at a slower tempo, by
Deep Purple as the intro to "
Child in Time" on its
Deep Purple in Rock album.
The vocals and violin playing of David LaFlamme plus Santos's singing
attracted FM radio play attention, and nationally, "White Bird" bubbled
under
Billboard's Hot 100 chart, peaking at number 118.
