"John McLaughlin, Mike Love & Charles Lloyd - California Girls"
In the early 1974 there was a music talk show called “Speak Easy.” It was hosted by Woodstock host Chip Monck. I remember watching an episode that had Peter Gabriel, Mike Love and John McLaughlin. I was watching because of Gabriel. I wasn’t into The Beach Boys at the time and know who John was. At the end of the show John McLaughlin, Mike Love and jazz reed player Charles Lloyd (of Forest Flower song who had also played with The Beach Boys) performed “California Girls.” As time past and I became a Beach Boy fan and found out who McLaughlin was I realized how special a moment this was. As I was surfing the web I occurred to me to see if maybe there was a video or at least audio recording of this. I found it.
The discussion was interesting. They showed a clip of Genesis live performing the “Willow farm” section of “Supper’s Ready” in which Gabriel wore a flower costume. Gabriel said that Genesis wrote fairy tales. Mike Love then said oh we did that as well. He was referring to “Mt Vernon and Fairway” ep that was part of their Holland album.
Genesis “Suppers Ready” This is the best song of the Peter Gabriel era band (Tony Banks keyboards, Mike Rutherford bas/guitar, Steve Hackett. Guitar, Phil Collins drums). It is a twenty min plus opus based on a vision that Gabriel had and is filled with biblical references. This was sort of a pre music video performance with Gabriel pulling out all the stops. The Apocalypse in 9/8 with that odd time signature has one of Banks best solos and concludes with a rousing finale. It is breathtaking. Note Be sure to select the 480 option for better audio and video
Charles Lloyd Forest Flower was his famous song originally with his group which included himself on sax, Jack DeJohnette on drums, Keith Jarrett on piano and Cecil McBee on bass. This is not the original but a good video highlighting the song http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zr6SIHQou68
John McLaughlin – while primarily an electric guitarist, he has played acoustic on several of his own recordings and with the group Shakti This is from the album Music spoken here And yes after hearing him I feel like how dare I ever try to play mine LOL
Beach Boys Holland The first three tracks feature vocals from South African Blondie Chaplin so it’s alright that they used the word funk cuz a brother was singing lol Carl Wilson is on the fourth
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