Zig Zags - Brainded Warrior

my baby went

Ray Stinnett - A Fire Somewhere
Light In The Attic Records
LITA 088
http://lightintheattic.net/releases/755-a-fire-somewhere

A hippie-fied, soul-rock, folk-rock, psych-rock gem lost in the vaults for four decades, A Fire Somewhere by Ray Stinnett (best known as a member of '60s outfit Sam The Sham & The Pharaohs) sounds as fresh as the day it was cut, and comes with extensive liner-notes detailing the fascinating life of a little-documented '60s rock voyager.

Born in Memphis in 1944, Ray Stinnett got his first guitar, aged 12, from Nathan Novak's pawn shop, where Elvis got his first guitar. Heading back down Beale Street afterwards, the family stopped at a light and a huge pink Cadillac pulled up beside them. "And oh my god -- it was Elvis!" recalls Ray, "So I held up my guitar and shouted, 'Hey Elvis!' and he looks over and says, "Hey cat." Ray told his father he was going to work hard and make a gold record... just like Elvis.

Before long, he was putting the plan into action, first in teen group Johnny and the Electros, then as a duo with drummer Jerry Patterson, playing nightly at honkytonks, roadhouses, beer joints, nightclubs and the many Memphis recording studios. He achieved his promise with Sam The Sham & The Pharaohs -- Wooly Bully was the number one selling record of 1965. At 21, Stinnett was living a life of world tours and screaming fans -- the whole mania. The wheels fell off a year later, amid managerial disputes. The four Pharaohs (including Ray) parted ways with Sam, wrote two stinging rebukes ("The Hanging" and "You Sure Have Changed") and released them as The Violations. Ray became more and more of a prolific writer.

By 1967, the summer of love, Ray left for Haight Ashbury in San Francisco with his wife and young son, taking up residence at the legendary Morning Star Ranch, where Ray focused on finding his true voice. Returning to Memphis a year later, Ray formed a working friendship with Booker T Jones, who produced Ray's unreleased Sun Tree at Pepper West album. Eventually, when Jones moved to Malibu and took a contract with A&M, he lined up a deal for his old friend.

Still working in Memphis with (old) friends Jerry Paterson and Mike Plunk on bass, along with Booker T. and co-mixer/engineer Richard Rosebrough (Chris Bell, Big Star), Ray channelled his experiences in the pop machine, at Morningstar and beyond into the songs that would become A Fire Somewhere. It funnelled the vast experiences of this pop star, cosmic traveller and grounded, loving father.

The songs contained the fried country twang and boogie-woogie grooves of his hometown and of his youth, but were also threaded through with the new psychedelia -- shreds of distorted guitar, looping experimental jams and acoustic renditions. "Art is a reflection of life," says Ray of the making of A Fire Somewhere, "and my life was full of reflection at this time." And it's perhaps exactly that fact which kept this incredible record unreleased for all these years.

By summer, the album was ready for release. By winter, it remained on the shelf. A&M reassured Ray that they were going to make him a superstar. Ray had already done that; he just wanted the songs released. Soon, they hit an impasse. Ray took his tapes and songs and went on with his life. In the end, A&M's loss -- is our gain. Listen, and enjoy, this message from another time, and from an old head on young shoulders. "It's a torch that's been carried forty years through the desert, waiting for this moment to arrive," says Ray.

+ Original album Executive Producer: Booker T. Jones
+ Original art intended for 1971 album release, seen for the first time
+ All songs previously unreleased
+ CD with 40-pg book with liner notes interviewing Ray with unseen photos
+ Double LP with download card for full album, plus liner notes and rare photos
+ Limited edition (200 copies on psychedelic orange swirl vinyl) pressing available to LITA Subscribers and the first 200 pre-orders at + LightInTheAttic.net. Limit 1 per customer.
+ LP includes 18×24′’ fold-out poster

Ray Stinnett - Honey Suckle Song

Sonic ID for WGXC Community Radio in Hudson, NY. http://wgxc.org/

WGXC Sonic ID

Tracks from the unreleased album, "Dusk Radio."

All music by Michael Garofalo, Jason Labbe, and Patrick McCarthy.

03 Frame Geometry

Released 2007 as a free103point9 Audio Dispatch. 

Music by Michael Garofalo and Patrick McCarthy.

"Solar Filters" was originally conceived as part of a song cycle about the sun and the way it influences Earth's atmosphere.  We abandoned the project when we realized the idea was more interesting than the music we wrote for it.  "Solar Filters" survived, though, and the shortwave radio textures that open the track (essentially, the sounds of the atmosphere) point to its origins.  During the time we were working on these recordings, cheap and toy radios were important to our performances -- often providing the only amplification for our instruments and voices.  Replicating the sound of these radios greatly informed our approach when committing the track to tape.

"Mother Evening" began, like most of our work, as a live improvisation.  When it came time to record and settle on lyrics, we turned to a type of spam email we were getting a lot of at that moment.  The emails were nonsense -- really just a collection random phrases and sentence fragments -- but there was something poetic about them.  So we took the lines that struck us as particularly sonorous and cobbled together a sort of collage poem.  Like the in-between-stations static on "Solar Filters," we incorporated this digital detritus (literally, junk mail) into "Mother Evening."

The etchings on either side of the vinyl records refer, albeit obliquely, to both the lost song cycle and the subject line from one of the spam emails we used.


 

Mother Evening

Solar Filters

In tribute to Zebulon, which closed this week, we're sharing an improvised live set recorded there in 2008. Patrick played electric guitar and sang. Jason played drum kit and percussion. Michael played with feedback and his mbira.

Zebulon 3.20.08

http://lightintheattic.net/releases/812-where-s-my-towel-industry-standard

In November 2012, LITA's Patrick McCarthy travelled to Austin, TX, to make a short documentary on the legendary skate rock band the Big Boys, which is in support of our latest reissue of their 1981 debut LP "Where's My Towel / Industry Standard" (out 4/5/13). After two days of interviews, I sat down with Tim and Chris to play the album and have them talk about it. Awesomeness ensued. 

For more info, audio samples and to order the album, visit the link below:

http://lightintheattic.net/releases/812-where-s-my-towel-industry-standard

What's the short doc "Looking Back It's Just Reflections" at the link below:

http://youtu.be/jHSYDCyBv5Q

In Conversation - Tim Kerr & Chris Gates: Big Boys "Where's My Towel / Industry Standard"

We dig through crates so you don't have to.

Ray Stinnett - Honey Suckle Song

Light in the Attic

Recent comments

SuperPelle

Related tracks