Wendy and Bonnie Flower were American singing sisters, who recorded the album Genesis in 1969 for Skye Records. The album was produced and arranged by jazz polymath Gary McFarland. McFarland at the time was a partner in the ownership of Skye, along with music impresario Norman Schwartz, Latin percussionist Cal Tjader (who was Wendy and Bonnie's godfather), and guitarist Gábor Szabó.
The sisters grew up in Millbrae, California, in the San Francisco Bay suburbs. Their parents, Art and Jeane Flower, were professional musicians. [1] In 1967, Wendy played and recorded with an early San Francisco psychedelic band called Crystal Fountain; Bonnie later joined the band as drummer. The following year, Tjader heard some of the Flower sisters' acoustic home demos and arranged a recording session with Skye. The sisters, who were teens at the time the album was recorded, composed all the songs. McFarland served as arranger on the sessions, crafting a post-psychedelic soft rock sound with Brazilian overtones. Musicians who performed on the album included guitarist Larry Carlton, drummer Jim Keltner, and keyboardist Mike Melvoin. [1]
The Skye label went bankrupt shortly after the album's release. [2] In 1971, while planning for additional recording with the Flower sisters, McFarland died of methadone poisoning in mysterious circumstances in a New York bar. [3]
In the early 1970s, Wendy and Bonnie provided background vocals on two Cal Tjader albums for Fantasy Records. Thereafter, the sisters pursued separate careers in music and entertainment, but did not record together again.
Genesis was reissued on CD in 2001 by the Sundazed Music label. In 2008, it was reissued in expanded format, including demos, alternate mixes, and vintage live recordings, on 2-CD and 3-LP vinyl sets. [4]
Their recording "By the Sea" was sampled by the Welsh space rock band Super Furry Animals on a single "Hello Sunshine," [2] which is also the opening track on the band's 2003 album Phantom Power . In 2010, French singer Laetitia Sadier of UK group Stereolab recorded "By the Sea" for release on her album The Trip. [5]
After singing guest harmony with Super Furry Animals at San Francisco's The Fillmore, New York's The Tonic and London's ICA, Wendy Flower performed (backed by Jane Weaver and The High Llamas) as one of the Lost Ladies of Folk at the 2007, Jarvis Cocker-curated Meltdown Festival. [6] She sang on Weaver's Fallen By Watchbird album [7] and, in 2013, released her own indie-pop album, New. [2]
Bonnie Flower died at the age of 63 on November 15, 2017. [8]
Vincent Anthony Guaraldi was an American jazz pianist best known for composing music for animated television adaptations of the Peanuts comic strip. His compositions for this series included their signature melody "Linus and Lucy" and the holiday standard "Christmas Time Is Here". Guaraldi is also known for his performances on piano as a member of Cal Tjader's 1950s ensembles and for his own solo career. Guaraldi's 1962 composition "Cast Your Fate to the Wind" became a radio hit and won a Grammy Award in 1963 for Best Original Jazz Composition. He died of a heart attack on February 6, 1976, at age 47, moments after concluding a nightclub performance in Menlo Park, California.
Callen Radcliffe Tjader Jr. was an American Latin Jazz musician, often described as the most successful non-Latino Latin musician. He explored other jazz idioms, especially small group modern jazz, even as he continued to perform music of Africa, the Caribbean and Latin America.
The Brogues were an American garage rock band formed in Merced, California, in 1964. Much of the group's brief recording career was marked by distorted-guitar melodies and R&B-influenced vocals. They released two regionally successful singles in their brief existence, most notably the Annette Tucker and Nancie Mantz-penned "I Ain't No Miracle Worker", which is now considered a classic of the garage rock genre. The song has also appeared on several compilation albums and has been covered by other music artists.
Lætitia Sadier, also known as Seaya Sadier, is a French musician best known as a founding member of the London-based avant-pop band Stereolab. She was born in the east of Paris and spent time in the US as a child. In 1996, while Stereolab was still active, she formed the side project Monade. In 2009 – the same year Stereolab became inactive – she ended the Monade project and began to perform solo work under her own name; her current band is known as the Lætitia Sadier Source Ensemble. She has frequently performed guest vocals and collaborations with other artists.
Cobra and Phases Group Play Voltage in the Milky Night is the sixth studio album by English-French rock band Stereolab. It was released on 21 September 1999 and was issued by Duophonic Records and Elektra Records. The album was largely co-produced by Stereolab, John McEntire, and Jim O'Rourke.
Alexander "Skip" Spence was a Canadian-born American singer-songwriter and musician. He was co-founder of Moby Grape, and played guitar with them until 1969. In the same year, he released his only solo album, Oar, and then largely withdrew from the music industry. He had started his career as a guitarist in an early line-up of Quicksilver Messenger Service, and was the drummer on Jefferson Airplane's debut album, Jefferson Airplane Takes Off. He has been described on the AllMusic website as "one of psychedelia's brightest lights"; however, his career was plagued by drug addiction coupled with mental health problems, and he has been described by a biographer as a man who "neither died young nor had a chance to find his way out."
Moby Grape is the 1967 debut album by rock band Moby Grape. Coming from the San Francisco scene, their reputation quickly grew to immense proportions, leading to a bidding war and a contract with Columbia Records. The album peaked at #24 on the Billboard 200 albums chart in September 1967.
Monade were a French post-rock band which was initially a side project of Lætitia Sadier, a founding member of Stereolab. In 2009, Sadier retired the project name and began performing under her own name.
The Great Society was a 1960s San Francisco rock band that existed from 1965 to 1966, and was closely associated with the burgeoning Bay Area acid rock scene. Best known as the original group of model-turned-singer Grace Slick, the initial lineup of the band also featured her then-husband Jerry Slick on drums, his brother Darby Slick on guitar, David Miner on vocals and guitar, Bard DuPont on bass, and Peter van Gelder on flute, bass, and saxophone. Miner and DuPont did not remain with the band for the duration of its existence.
Armando Peraza was a Cuban Latin jazz percussionist and a member of the rock band Santana. Peraza played congas, bongos, and timbales.
"Hello Sunshine" is a song by the Welsh band Super Furry Animals from their album Phantom Power. It was the seventeenth single released by the group and reached number 31 on the UK Singles Chart in October 2003.
Gary Ronald McFarland was an American composer, arranger, conductor, vibraphonist, and vocalist. He recorded for the jazz imprints Verve and Impulse! Records during the 1960s. DownBeat magazine said he made "one of the more significant contributors to orchestral jazz". A 2015 review of a McFarland DVD documentary called him "one of the busiest New York jazz arrangers of the 1960s". The review further stated that McFarland's "ascendance coincided with the rise of bossa nova, and McFarland was adept at translating the mercurial song form into orchestrations. He wrote some beautiful orchestral settings for great soloists, yet wasn't immune to commercial forces."
John Anthony Pompeo, better known as Johnny Rae, was an American jazz drummer and vibraphonist.
Skye Records was a United States–based record label established in early 1968 by music executive/producer/artist manager Norman Schwartz, in partnership with musician/arranger Gary McFarland, guitarist Gábor Szabó, and vibraphonist Cal Tjader.
Live May 11, 1968 is a live album by the American psychedelic rock band H. P. Lovecraft and was released in 1991. The eight tracks included on the album were all recorded at The Fillmore in San Francisco, California, on May 11, 1968, soon after the band's original bass player Jerry McGeorge had been replaced by Jeffrey Boyan. The album consists of material taken from the band's first two studio albums and features very good sound quality considering the era in which it was recorded.
The Place and the Time is a compilation album of demos, outtakes, alternative versions and live versions of songs by Moby Grape, released by Sundazed Music in 2009 in CD and double LP format.
The Trip is the debut solo album by French indie musician Lætitia Sadier, known as member of Stereolab and her side project Monade. The album was recorded in 2010 and was released in September of the same year.
John Mosher (1928–1998) was an American jazz bassist, classical bassist and composer who worked, recorded and toured with a wide range of primarily West Coast artists from the 1950s through the mid-1990s.
Edward Lozano Duran was an American jazz guitarist from San Francisco. He recorded often with Vince Guaraldi and was a member of the Benny Goodman orchestra during the 1970s.
Fever Tree is the debut studio album by the American psychedelic rock band Fever Tree and was released on March 28, 1968 on Uni Records. It blended multiple influences ranging from psychedelia to baroque pop and folk rock, and was marked by eerie ballads and hard rock numbers. Much of the group's material was penned by the husband-wife songwriting duo of Scott and Vivian Holtzman, along with renditions of contemporary rock songs. The album was preceded by arguably Fever Tree's best known song, "San Francisco Girls ", becoming the group's only nationally charting single. Like its attendant single, Fever Tree was also moderately successful and managed to reach number 156 on the Billboard 200.