Frank Gutch Jr: John Stewart— More Than Just “Gold”; Wayne Berry— Welcome Home

I picked up a turntable for my sister a couple of months ago.  She had found what she said was about twenty of her old albums (it was more like a hundred and fifty) and had the urge to once again hear them.  Mostly they were albums I remember her liking— Percy Faith, Rod McKuen, Enoch Light and the like.  She drove me nuts with those albums when we were kids but I secretly liked a lot of them.  (I did truly hate the Sound of Music, Colleen, but the others were okay).

Frank Gutch Jr: Musicians on a Mission: Dan Phelps, Julian Taylor, Wes Swing, and Jimmy Lee (formerly Lee’s Company)… Plus a lugubrious panorama of Notes

Meet Dan Phelps, if you have not already done so.  I first ran across him over a decade ago when he was working with both Bill Pillmore and his daughter Jess Pillmore on their respective albums, Look In Look Out and Reveal.  Bill was an original member of Cowboy and I had heard through Scott Boyer, another original member of that venerable band, that he was recording for the first time, to my knowledge, since Cowboy‘s excellent 1971 release, 5’ll Getcha Ten.  When I contacted him, he was in full recording mode, working with Phelps, whom he had chosen to produce.  To my amazement, Phelps did more than just produce.  He was a sideman and a damn good one, a creator of good licks and solid musical ideas.  It was a first look at a musician I would follow from that point on.