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"...Eggs
And Emeralds..."
A little history first about our two musical heroes and their 1969 double-dip on Straight Records...
Along with Chip Douglas (later with The Turtles), Cyrus Faryar (later with Zodiac) and his brother Jim Yester – Jerry Yester had been in The Modern Folk Quartet – a hipster outfit who'd punched out a few albums in the early 60ts on Warner Brothers. Yester then met the tall, gargles-gravel-for-breakfast torch singer Judy Henske and they toured for a few years - him with M.F.Q. and her as a solo artist for Elektra Records (they married in 1963). Jerry then briefly joined the ranks of John Sebastian's Lovin' Spoonful for their 1967 "Everything Playing" album – orchestrating songs and co-writing two - "Only Pretty, What A Pity" with Joe Butler and "Close Your Eyes" with Sebastian.
A couple of years forward and with Herb Cohen as Executive producer (a long-time manager for Henske) – Yester suggesting a duet album with his wife - where he wrote the music and she penned the lyrics. And so "Farewell Aldebaran" was born – recorded early 1969 in New York and issued Stateside in June 1969 on Frank Zappa's home for all things weird, wonderful and left of field - Straight Records (Straight STS 1052). This cult LP even received a UK issue with the same catalogue number and gatefold sleeve in February 1970 via CBS Records (they distributed all artists on Straight in England - people like Tim Buckley, Tim Dawe, The GTO's, Alice Cooper, Captain Beefheart and more). Yester and former Lovin' Spoonful member Zal Yanovsky produced the LP with all songs written by Henske and Yester except "Snowblind" which also had Zal Yanovsky as a third co-write.
Did they do well – not really... There's an issue of Billboard Magazine dated 21 July 1969 where the industry bible reviews three gloriously off-kilter albums of the period. Each is now revered so deeply that they might indeed induce a genuflection amongst men of a certain age - even though at the time they warranted only tiny paragraphs per record that few outside of bleary-eyed industry-types ever read. First up was Captain Beefheart's double-album "Trout Mask Replica” on Straight Records STS 1053 – a discordant and deeply challenging beast if ever there was one (bow down ye minions of no consequence). Next came another genre barnstormer - the ex Moby Grape guitarist and notorious druggy Alex Spence and his nutty "Oar" LP over on Columbia Records. And finally, a catalogue number below Beefheart on STS 1052 - "Farewell Aldebaran" by outspoken folky Judy Henske and her 'teen idol' husband Jerry Yester. The reviewer reliably informs his hipster readership that although the album is actually good - "...it needs a push and the 'Underground' ought to help there..." Well it did need a push but unfortunately those underground types were too stoned to do anything for our Acid-Folk champions because although the LP made waves in certain circles – it did little chart action anywhere (much like everything on the Straight label for that matter).
Not for the want of trying or good will either. In early July 1969 - Straight Records tried to stimulate sales by combining the album's Side 1 fuzz-guitar opener "Snowblind" with the Todd Rundgren-jaunty childlike melody of "Horses On A Stick” for its flipside on an American 45 (Straight STS 102) – but no joy. However over in Blighty – members of Fairport Convention and Matthews Southern Comfort loved the album. Ian Matthews and ex Liverpool Scene/future Grimms songwriter Andy Roberts covered "Raider" in 1972 with their Plainsong band and its "In Search Of Amelia Earhart" LP project – as obscure a cover version as one could get.
A word about genre and legend too while we’re at it. Although they’re obviously trying to lure in a lucrative market - this Omnivore Recordings reissue screams loudly from its sticker that the LP is a 'Psychedelic Masterpiece' when it's actually neither. "Farewell Aldebaran" is more Folk-Rock with tinges of hippy Acid-Folk than Psych - especially the kind of whig-out guitar pyrotechnics some would expect from such a word. This record is much more mellow than that – musically adventurous for sure in places but the term Psych is stretching it. Still the 1969 album has gathered a steady following ever since...which brings us to this rather lovely-sounding 2016 reissue. Let's get to the details...
US released August 2016 - "Farewell Aldebaran" by JUDY HENSKE and JERRY YESTER on Omnivore Recordings OVCD-180 (Barcode 816651015566) is an 'Expanded Edition' CD Reissue and Remaster (authorised by both artists) with Five Previously Unreleased Instrumental Demos that plays out as follows (48:28 minutes):
1. Snowblind [Side 1]
2. Horses On A Stick
3. Lullaby
4. St. Nicholas Hall
5. Three Ravens
6. Raider [Side 2]
7. Mrs. Connor
8. Rapture
9. Charity
10. Farewell Aldebaran
Tracks 1 to 10 are the album "Farewell Aldebaran" - released June 1969 in the USA on Straight Records STS 1052 and February 1970 in the UK also on Straight Records STS 1052. Produced by JERRY YESTER and ZAL YANOVSKY - it failed to chart in either country
BONUS TRACKS (all Previously Unreleased):
11. Merry-Go-Round ("Horses On A Stick" Instrumental Demo)
12. Charity (Instrumental Demo)
13. Zanzibar ("Farewell Aldebaran" Instrumental Demo)
14. Moods For Cellos ("Three Ravens" Instrumental Demo)
15. Divers Asleep ("Rapture" Instrumental Demo)
PLAYERS:
JERRY YESTER - Acoustic Guitar, Banjo, Harmonium, Piano, Marxophone, Moog Synthesizer, Chamberlin Tape Organ, Harpsichord, Toy Zither
Lead Vocals on "One More Time" and "Farewell Aldebaran"
Duet Vocals with Judy Henske on "Horses On A Stick", "Three Ravens", "Raider" and "Charity"
Backing Vocals on "St. Nicholas Hall" and "Raider"
JUDY HENSKE - Lead Vocals on all tracks except "One More Time" and "Farewell Aldebaran"
ZAL YANOVSKY - Bass and Electric Guitars
JOHN FORSHA - Electric Guitars
DICK ROSMINI - Acoustic Guitar on "Charity"
JOE OSBOURNE - Bass on ""Horses On A Stick"
RAY BROWN - Bass on "One More Time"
SOLOMON FELDTHOUSE - Hammered Dulcimer on "Lullaby" and "Raider"
DAVID LINDLEY - 5-Stringed Banjo on "Raider"
LARRY BECKETT - Drums on all tracks except EDDIE HOH on "Horses On A Stick" and TOXIE FRENCH on "Raider" and "One More Time"
The gatefold digipak is pretty enough - the lyrics that filled up both sides of the inner sleeve now transferred in readable typed form into the 20-page booklet while a repro of the "Snowblind" US 7" single label for Straight Records STS 102 is featured beneath the see-through CD tray. Page 6 gives us detailed musician credits (for the first time I believe) and Pages 2 to 8 feature new BARRY ALFONSO liner notes that included fresh interviews with both the protagonists. There are rare tape box sleeves pictured, a trade advert and a rare Euro picture sleeve for the "Snowblind" single. Produced by CHERYL PAWELSKI - the mastering was done by MICHAEL GRAVES at Osiris Studios in Atlanta - newly remastered from original tapes. The audio for the album is superb - rich and full - but the demos vary - dipping in and out - especially the last two (not that any of them are actually something you're ever going to listen to more than once). To the core LP...
Given the deliberately blurred family-portrait photo negative on the front sleeve (suggesting perhaps dysfunction) - when the fuzzed-up guitar kicks in for the Side 1 opener "Snowblind" –- you're half expecting a whole album of the same attack. But the 10-track LP is mostly made up of Folk Melodies with occasional lapses into seriously sarcastic jabs like raising money for religion in "St. Nicholas Hall" (a message sent from Sister Content – she is mean and incredibly old). Judy even apes a whooshing comet on "Farewell Aldebaran" - her voice always feeling like a thing of wonder that can go anywhere. Back to track 2 - the slightly childish Pop of "Horses On A Stick" comes as a shock after the hard-hitting opener - a sort of Association meets early Todd Rundgren mishmash of sounds - a grower actually. Things improve immeasurably with the Harpsichord ballad "Lullaby" – Judy and her extraordinary croaking voice sounding like someone from another realm – a female Klaatu rocking you to sleep as she sings about the end of the world. "Three Ravens" ends the side with complex and impressive arrangements - a song that reaches for different ways of delivering musical melody and largely succeeds.
A strangely wonderful song and a blinding opening to Side 2 - I've loved the song "Raider" for decades and I play the damn thing to death. Some ne'er-do-well steals a morning mare - sleeps out in the fields - lighting fires on a cold night to keep him and his sly mare warm. The dusty Wild West vibe is anchored by Folky instruments like the Hammered Dulcimer (supplied by Solomon Feldthouse from Kaleidoscope) while future Jackson Browne sideman David Lindley plucks a 5-string banjo (he was also in Kaleidoscope). But what makes it tingle are the staggering number of layered vocals - all supplied by Henske and Yester as they chant "...raider stole the morning mare...as slick as she was sly..." - over and over again.
Yester then takes a rare lead vocal on the sad "One More Time" - a hymn to Mrs. Connor and her beau who longs to lay beside her, once again at one with his lady's long white hair. "Rapture" also feels thematically epic as Judy sings of divers, pilots and lovers literally dying for love in varying ways - the hot sun calling them to stillness - a doomed but poetic end. Interestingly the liner notes tell us that Paul Beaver of the pioneering Synth duo Beaver & Krauss programmed the Moog for the album's final excursion - "Farewell Aldebaran" - but it’s a mess of ideas I've always found hard to like. The Demos are particularly innocuous - curios at best – a waste of time at worst.
Is it Psych - no - is it a Masterpiece - no not that either. But this wonderfully remastered variant of "Farewell Aldebaran" is the kind of album you keep coming back to - always finding surprises - something new. And for me that's the best recommendation there is.
Check out this Morgan Mare - slick as she is sly...
Along with Chip Douglas (later with The Turtles), Cyrus Faryar (later with Zodiac) and his brother Jim Yester – Jerry Yester had been in The Modern Folk Quartet – a hipster outfit who'd punched out a few albums in the early 60ts on Warner Brothers. Yester then met the tall, gargles-gravel-for-breakfast torch singer Judy Henske and they toured for a few years - him with M.F.Q. and her as a solo artist for Elektra Records (they married in 1963). Jerry then briefly joined the ranks of John Sebastian's Lovin' Spoonful for their 1967 "Everything Playing" album – orchestrating songs and co-writing two - "Only Pretty, What A Pity" with Joe Butler and "Close Your Eyes" with Sebastian.
A couple of years forward and with Herb Cohen as Executive producer (a long-time manager for Henske) – Yester suggesting a duet album with his wife - where he wrote the music and she penned the lyrics. And so "Farewell Aldebaran" was born – recorded early 1969 in New York and issued Stateside in June 1969 on Frank Zappa's home for all things weird, wonderful and left of field - Straight Records (Straight STS 1052). This cult LP even received a UK issue with the same catalogue number and gatefold sleeve in February 1970 via CBS Records (they distributed all artists on Straight in England - people like Tim Buckley, Tim Dawe, The GTO's, Alice Cooper, Captain Beefheart and more). Yester and former Lovin' Spoonful member Zal Yanovsky produced the LP with all songs written by Henske and Yester except "Snowblind" which also had Zal Yanovsky as a third co-write.
Did they do well – not really... There's an issue of Billboard Magazine dated 21 July 1969 where the industry bible reviews three gloriously off-kilter albums of the period. Each is now revered so deeply that they might indeed induce a genuflection amongst men of a certain age - even though at the time they warranted only tiny paragraphs per record that few outside of bleary-eyed industry-types ever read. First up was Captain Beefheart's double-album "Trout Mask Replica” on Straight Records STS 1053 – a discordant and deeply challenging beast if ever there was one (bow down ye minions of no consequence). Next came another genre barnstormer - the ex Moby Grape guitarist and notorious druggy Alex Spence and his nutty "Oar" LP over on Columbia Records. And finally, a catalogue number below Beefheart on STS 1052 - "Farewell Aldebaran" by outspoken folky Judy Henske and her 'teen idol' husband Jerry Yester. The reviewer reliably informs his hipster readership that although the album is actually good - "...it needs a push and the 'Underground' ought to help there..." Well it did need a push but unfortunately those underground types were too stoned to do anything for our Acid-Folk champions because although the LP made waves in certain circles – it did little chart action anywhere (much like everything on the Straight label for that matter).
Not for the want of trying or good will either. In early July 1969 - Straight Records tried to stimulate sales by combining the album's Side 1 fuzz-guitar opener "Snowblind" with the Todd Rundgren-jaunty childlike melody of "Horses On A Stick” for its flipside on an American 45 (Straight STS 102) – but no joy. However over in Blighty – members of Fairport Convention and Matthews Southern Comfort loved the album. Ian Matthews and ex Liverpool Scene/future Grimms songwriter Andy Roberts covered "Raider" in 1972 with their Plainsong band and its "In Search Of Amelia Earhart" LP project – as obscure a cover version as one could get.
A word about genre and legend too while we’re at it. Although they’re obviously trying to lure in a lucrative market - this Omnivore Recordings reissue screams loudly from its sticker that the LP is a 'Psychedelic Masterpiece' when it's actually neither. "Farewell Aldebaran" is more Folk-Rock with tinges of hippy Acid-Folk than Psych - especially the kind of whig-out guitar pyrotechnics some would expect from such a word. This record is much more mellow than that – musically adventurous for sure in places but the term Psych is stretching it. Still the 1969 album has gathered a steady following ever since...which brings us to this rather lovely-sounding 2016 reissue. Let's get to the details...
US released August 2016 - "Farewell Aldebaran" by JUDY HENSKE and JERRY YESTER on Omnivore Recordings OVCD-180 (Barcode 816651015566) is an 'Expanded Edition' CD Reissue and Remaster (authorised by both artists) with Five Previously Unreleased Instrumental Demos that plays out as follows (48:28 minutes):
1. Snowblind [Side 1]
2. Horses On A Stick
3. Lullaby
4. St. Nicholas Hall
5. Three Ravens
6. Raider [Side 2]
7. Mrs. Connor
8. Rapture
9. Charity
10. Farewell Aldebaran
Tracks 1 to 10 are the album "Farewell Aldebaran" - released June 1969 in the USA on Straight Records STS 1052 and February 1970 in the UK also on Straight Records STS 1052. Produced by JERRY YESTER and ZAL YANOVSKY - it failed to chart in either country
BONUS TRACKS (all Previously Unreleased):
11. Merry-Go-Round ("Horses On A Stick" Instrumental Demo)
12. Charity (Instrumental Demo)
13. Zanzibar ("Farewell Aldebaran" Instrumental Demo)
14. Moods For Cellos ("Three Ravens" Instrumental Demo)
15. Divers Asleep ("Rapture" Instrumental Demo)
PLAYERS:
JERRY YESTER - Acoustic Guitar, Banjo, Harmonium, Piano, Marxophone, Moog Synthesizer, Chamberlin Tape Organ, Harpsichord, Toy Zither
Lead Vocals on "One More Time" and "Farewell Aldebaran"
Duet Vocals with Judy Henske on "Horses On A Stick", "Three Ravens", "Raider" and "Charity"
Backing Vocals on "St. Nicholas Hall" and "Raider"
JUDY HENSKE - Lead Vocals on all tracks except "One More Time" and "Farewell Aldebaran"
ZAL YANOVSKY - Bass and Electric Guitars
JOHN FORSHA - Electric Guitars
DICK ROSMINI - Acoustic Guitar on "Charity"
JOE OSBOURNE - Bass on ""Horses On A Stick"
RAY BROWN - Bass on "One More Time"
SOLOMON FELDTHOUSE - Hammered Dulcimer on "Lullaby" and "Raider"
DAVID LINDLEY - 5-Stringed Banjo on "Raider"
LARRY BECKETT - Drums on all tracks except EDDIE HOH on "Horses On A Stick" and TOXIE FRENCH on "Raider" and "One More Time"
The gatefold digipak is pretty enough - the lyrics that filled up both sides of the inner sleeve now transferred in readable typed form into the 20-page booklet while a repro of the "Snowblind" US 7" single label for Straight Records STS 102 is featured beneath the see-through CD tray. Page 6 gives us detailed musician credits (for the first time I believe) and Pages 2 to 8 feature new BARRY ALFONSO liner notes that included fresh interviews with both the protagonists. There are rare tape box sleeves pictured, a trade advert and a rare Euro picture sleeve for the "Snowblind" single. Produced by CHERYL PAWELSKI - the mastering was done by MICHAEL GRAVES at Osiris Studios in Atlanta - newly remastered from original tapes. The audio for the album is superb - rich and full - but the demos vary - dipping in and out - especially the last two (not that any of them are actually something you're ever going to listen to more than once). To the core LP...
Given the deliberately blurred family-portrait photo negative on the front sleeve (suggesting perhaps dysfunction) - when the fuzzed-up guitar kicks in for the Side 1 opener "Snowblind" –- you're half expecting a whole album of the same attack. But the 10-track LP is mostly made up of Folk Melodies with occasional lapses into seriously sarcastic jabs like raising money for religion in "St. Nicholas Hall" (a message sent from Sister Content – she is mean and incredibly old). Judy even apes a whooshing comet on "Farewell Aldebaran" - her voice always feeling like a thing of wonder that can go anywhere. Back to track 2 - the slightly childish Pop of "Horses On A Stick" comes as a shock after the hard-hitting opener - a sort of Association meets early Todd Rundgren mishmash of sounds - a grower actually. Things improve immeasurably with the Harpsichord ballad "Lullaby" – Judy and her extraordinary croaking voice sounding like someone from another realm – a female Klaatu rocking you to sleep as she sings about the end of the world. "Three Ravens" ends the side with complex and impressive arrangements - a song that reaches for different ways of delivering musical melody and largely succeeds.
A strangely wonderful song and a blinding opening to Side 2 - I've loved the song "Raider" for decades and I play the damn thing to death. Some ne'er-do-well steals a morning mare - sleeps out in the fields - lighting fires on a cold night to keep him and his sly mare warm. The dusty Wild West vibe is anchored by Folky instruments like the Hammered Dulcimer (supplied by Solomon Feldthouse from Kaleidoscope) while future Jackson Browne sideman David Lindley plucks a 5-string banjo (he was also in Kaleidoscope). But what makes it tingle are the staggering number of layered vocals - all supplied by Henske and Yester as they chant "...raider stole the morning mare...as slick as she was sly..." - over and over again.
Yester then takes a rare lead vocal on the sad "One More Time" - a hymn to Mrs. Connor and her beau who longs to lay beside her, once again at one with his lady's long white hair. "Rapture" also feels thematically epic as Judy sings of divers, pilots and lovers literally dying for love in varying ways - the hot sun calling them to stillness - a doomed but poetic end. Interestingly the liner notes tell us that Paul Beaver of the pioneering Synth duo Beaver & Krauss programmed the Moog for the album's final excursion - "Farewell Aldebaran" - but it’s a mess of ideas I've always found hard to like. The Demos are particularly innocuous - curios at best – a waste of time at worst.
Is it Psych - no - is it a Masterpiece - no not that either. But this wonderfully remastered variant of "Farewell Aldebaran" is the kind of album you keep coming back to - always finding surprises - something new. And for me that's the best recommendation there is.
Check out this Morgan Mare - slick as she is sly...
PS: see also my review for "The Elektra Years" by JUDY HENSKE. It's a July 2017 Ace Records CD Reissue that offers her first and second albums from 1963 ("Judy Henske") and 1964 (High Flying Bird") on Elektra Records in Stereo in their entirety.
