If you’re around my age, you might remember the original version of this:
I’ve heard a lot of denigrations of The Association. They may have been “pop for the masses,” but their songwriters were among the best of the AM-Radio era…and Pat Metheny has taken their classic tune and done it full justice. On a single guitar, at that!
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Odd, this song popped into my head the other day. Beautiful cover.
I’ll forgive The Association anything after “Along Comes Mary.” (Just try to do a sing-a-long, even if you know the words.) I’ll guess you’re not a great fan of the herb, but ACM is one of the definitive pieces of early psychedelic rock. And it’s one of the best portraits of smoking it that has ever been done.
JWM
I drove from upstate NY to Utah and back in the summer of ’66. Every AM station along the route was playing that song. It’s one of the few songs of any genre that I loathe.
I loved The Association. I saw them, years after their heyday, in one of the Moondog concerts (The original Moondog concert was held in Cleveland, OH, back in 1952, when rock & roll was just starting; the idea was resuscitated in the early 90s). They played, not only Along Comes Mary and Cherish, but Windy and Never My Love.
When I was an aerospace engineer (now retired) we sat next to a group of software developers, and had some interaction with them for the work-related avionics group I was in, and also on a personal level, chatting around the coffee pot type thing. This was in the 1980’s/1990’s.
One in particular was a good buddy to talk to. Another buddy of mine who had a side gig doing studio musician work came up to me one day and said “Do you know who that is? That’s [name] who was in the [group]!” I was stunned, they were one of my favorite groups in the 1960’s/early 1970’s. Later I talked to him about it and he told me the story. When in college, he linked up with fellow musicians who formed a group to make music together. In the 1960’s they had a number of hit albums, and still tour today. But this one member decided to move on, for several reasons. He realized that the record companies were cheating them every way they could, and now that he had graduated, took the money he made to go into the then-new field of computer science to have a more stable lifestyle and steady employment. Over the years the group has had many members come and go, and he still linked up to jam with them occasionally.