You can go your own way, go your own way...and I'll still be late again...
My introduction to this week's tune is simply being a child of the seventies. Though I may have recalled it from when it was first released (my family used to go camping for a week on my father's vacations, and without a TV the radio was all we had for entertainment and it well could have been released around the time of one of those camping trips), it would mostly be from its being ubiquitously played throughout my teenage years. Even to this day, it's not unusual to be walking around any number of retail establishments and hear it over their sound systems--as well as on numerous oldie stations. Not a bad feat more than fifty years after its release....
Blues Image formed in Miami, Florida in 1966. After a couple of years playing local gigs, they became the house band at Thee Image (an innovative club that saw the likes of Cream, Grateful Dead, and last week's band of the week, Blood, Sweat & Tears), and their success there led them to move to Los Angeles in 1969, where they were signed by Atco Records (I have 45's--google it, kids--with the Atco imprint on the labels). They released an album that first year in L.A., and two more in 1970, and then they were done. Seriously--no reunion tours, nothing. For their career, they released the aforementioned three albums (two of which charted), one compilation, and four singles (ditto). The band's members would go on to perform with the likes of Iron Butterfly, Crosby, Still, Nash & Young, Alice Cooper, and Three Dog Night. and two of their members would have some success in the Contemporary Christian genre.
Fun Fact: The line "Seventy-three men sailed up, from the San Francisco Bay..." came about because lead guitarist Mike Pinera was sitting at a piano trying to compose a song and wanted to come up with an opening word. A piano has seventy-three keys, and Pinera liked the rhythm of those words and wrote the rest of the lyrics and music from there (with help from Skip Konte).
"Ride Captain Ride" was the first single from their 1970 album, the rather widely (do you know how many definitions there are of the word "open"? Too damn many, that's how many.) entitled Open. The single would reach #4 (with a bullet!) in the U.S. (as well as Canada--once again, so many cool kids in the Great White North!), while the album peaked at #147.
"Ride Captain Ride" tells the tale of a band of men aboard a ship setting sail to find their Shangri-La. When they ger there, the people are too ensconced in their own lives to notice them, so the captain says, "Fuck it, we're out of here." And so, they set sail once again, and eventually they disappear forever. How fucking cool is that? As for the song itself, it's a smooth groove, lots of fun and funk (catchy as all hell chorus with backing vocals to die for), and some blue-eyed soul singing. I've mentioned a time or two (or three, or four, or....) about how sometimes very talented people get together and make magic to create a song that outshines and outlives anything else said band members do musically, and this week's tune is one of those times. Just a wonderful piece of funky pop to remind those of us of a certain age just how wondrous the seventies were musically--and hopefully give some young whippersnappers a glimpse of that wonder.
Lyric Sheet: "Ride, captain, ride upon your mystery ship/Be amazed at the friends you have here on your trip..."
Enjoy:
Fuck Donald Trump
Peace,
emaycee
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