8 thoughts on “Essential Remnants: #15. The Rascals, Time/Peace

  1. A GREAT band and a GREAT choice. In fact Peter, you picked a vid of my favorite song by the Rascals.

    I saw them in 1969, opening for Hendrix and Vanilla Fudge. They were just great, but I think because they were a Top 40 band the quality of their songwriting and musicianship seemed watered down (it wasn’t: I could hear how good they were, I just think they were not taken as seriously as they should have been).

  2. Interesting in that Vanilla Fudge would not have existed were it not for the Rascals. Lawr’s comment is quite the comment on the times – I remember that people didn’t take Creedence seriously either. The other bands took the Rascals seriously. Felix C was from my hometown of Pelham, NY, and my old landlord played in a band with him in the late 50s, which he said was the first integrated band in the area.

  3. I love this clip. By 1969 their sound was lusher and more explicitly political (if loving your neighbor as you would have them love you, regardless of color, is political). Freedom Suite has a fantastic sound that derives from Motown and Stax, but is conversing not lipsynching.

  4. Gene is right, btw, Dino was one of the first great (and showy) drummers. sign of a great drummer is he can twirl his sticks and stay calm. imperturbable is what my mate Steve Gibson calls it.

    but, that sequence with Allan King (he was in Goodfellas, too) where he is the cop is from the NBC show Hullaballoo, and the guy who asks “Officer King” out of the window was a KYA DJ at the time.

    It was a big deal around here. And, KYA was where Tom Donanhue and Jim Washburn worked and then migrated to KMPX and the first free-form FM station in the country (they then all moved to KSAN, which lived to 1980).

    But, Washburn died in a car accident, running into Richard Farina (Washburn in his Triumph, Farina on his Triumph) and both died, the night of the publication party of “Been Down So Long It Looks Like Up to Me.”

    Tight little circle. Richard was married to Mimi, Joan Baez’ sister.

    Sad day. Big loss.

  5. Richard and Mimi’s Celebrations for a Grey Day was a late cut from my list of 50.

    Been Down So Long It Looks Like Up To Me is a favorite book.

    I’m a folkie.

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