Rocky Mountain Spotlight: The Beckett Quintet - No Correspondence/It's All Over Now, Baby Blue

Day five of our Rocky Mountain Showdown finds us listening to a group of five students from Eastern New Mexico University in the small farm town of Portales. They went by the generic and not abundantly obvious name of The Beckett Quintet. The five students, Tommy Muncrief (vocals), Tim Taylor (guitar), Barry Dunkenson (guitar), Norm Reccius (bass), and Steve Nagle (drums), struck out for Los Angeles in 1965 searching for fame and fortune.

Not long after they got to LA they recorded their one and only single for Gemcor Records. The A-side, No Correspondence, was written by guitarist Tim Taylor and tells the tale of a boy who has "been gone for a month or better" and is waiting for his girl to write him. Sounds pretty autobiographical. But sitting by the mailbox demanding "You Better Right Me!!!" to this cheating girl is probably not the best way to get her back. Tim, she probably wasn't worth it. The chicks in LA were probably a higher cut than what you had back in Portales, anyway. 

The flip-side is a unique cover of Bob Dylan's It's All Over Now, Baby Blue. The Beckett Quintet's version was released just months after Dylan's beautiful (and often covered) original. It's a greatly under appreciated version with a unique arrangement and some intriguing production. I love it. Maybe even more than the A-side. 

The A-side has been comped numerous times and the record isn't very hard to find. It was later picked up by A&M Records for national distribution. But, surprisingly, that seems to be much harder to find than the Gemcor Records version.

There is a lot more to be learned about this band over at the website, http://www.garagehangover.com/beckettquintet/. Check it out for an interview and some original newspaper clippings which recount the band playing indian reservations and sleeping on hardwood floors.

Until next time, we'll see you On The Flip-Side!

It's All Over Now, Baby Blue (bonus versions)

Lots of requests for other versions, so here you go.

Chocolate Watch Band

Grateful Dead

Marrianne Faithfull

Bad Religion

The Seldom Scene

Song of the Week: The Byrds -- It's All Over Now, Baby Blue

We close today with not one, but two -- that's right, TWO - versions of The Byrds performing It's All Over Now, Baby Blue. The blue version is an unreleased recording by the original line-up of The Byrds (Roger McGuinn, David Crosby, Chris Hillman, Gene Clark and Michael Clarke). It was recorded in Los Angeles in 1965, about the same time the Beckett Quintet recorded the song in the same town, and was slated to be the perfect pitched band's 3rd single on Columbia Records. The Byrds and their manager, Terry Melcher, were unsatisfied with the recording as a single and instead turned to another song which Roger McGuinn had been arranging, Turn, Turn, Turn. Somehow the Byrd's early version of It's All Over Now Baby Blue never got past a preview showing on a local LA radio station. Never even made it to an album. D'oh!

Roger McGuinn returned to Bob Dylan's song four years later in 1969. But this was a very different Byrds band. David Crosby was now a founding member of Crosby, Stills and Nash (yuck), Chris Hillman and Michael Clarke left to found The Flying Burrito Brothers with interim Byrds-alum, Gram Parsons. And Gene Clark was making some striking records with Doug Dillard. The version of the The Byrds who recorded this song were Clarence White, John York, Gene Parsons and, of course, McGuinn. This version did see the light of day in both the film and soundtrack for Easy Rider. Much slower, and much more countrified. It's still pretty cool and this line-up of The Byrds showed they could harmonize just about as well as the original line-up. 

Enjoy!

Song of the Week: 13th Floor Elevators - It's All Over Now, Baby Blue

Day four of our celebration of Bob Dylan's It's All Over Now, Baby Blue. Austin Texas' 13th Floor Elevators released this very unique version of Baby Blue on the Easter Everywhere album in November, 1967. It was also released as the flip-side of their 4th single, She Lives. This is one bitchin' version if you ask me. Slow, brooding and as trippy as they come. All that without getting to the more cartoonish aspects of psychedelic music. The double lead guitar builds throughout the song and Roky Erickson, as always, is perfect in his vocal delivery. Interestingly, Tommy Hall's jug playing seems to be absent throughout the song -- even in the long musical close of the five minute song.

Flip-Side Trivia -- The 13th Floor Elevators were the first ever post back in October of 2008 at On The Flip-Side. It was even a song from this same album. The song was I had To Tell You. This same album also produced this post about the song Levitation back in 2010. Three posts from one album is without question a Flip-Side record. 

One of my favorite music blogs, Derek's Daily 45, has also done three posts on the Elevators. Here is a link to their post about Slip Inside This House.

Song of the Week: Them - It's All Over Now, Baby Blue

Day two celebrating Bob Dylan's 1965 composition, It's All Over Now, Baby Blue. Today we turn our attention to the single most influential cover of the song. It is by Van Morrison's first group, Them. The band (or more likely was the case with this band, the studio musicians) recorded and released this in 1966. The production is stellar and the electric piano run through a Leslie Speaker set the standard for this song. Van Morrison is, as was always the case in these days, spot on perfect. Almost every version of the song you hear, will be derived from this original arrangement. Few, if any, surpass it, however. 

To demonstrate this version's influence, we give to you, today, a bonus. It is Beck's 1996 song, Jack-Ass. It won't take you long to listen to this to figure out why I included it with this post. 

Enjoy, comment, have fun. 

Song of the Week: Bob Dylan - It's All Over Now Baby Blue

Today is the first day of our celebration of Bob Dylan's 1965 release of his song, It's All Over Now Baby Blue. Each day this week we will feature another version of this beautiful song. So...stay tuned.