Posted on 10/23/2022 2:50:51 PM PDT by SamAdams76
A haunting song from the late summer of 1979 from the "Bombs Away Dream Babies" album of John Stewart.
Mostly an overlooked album but one worth finding as it features the background singing of Stevie Nicks and the guitar work of Lindsey Buckingham on some of the tracks, including the more recognized Top 10 hit "Gold."
Anyway, I hope you all like it. Should have been a much bigger hit (made it to #28 in October of 1979).
I listen to SomaFM on the Tune-in radio app, and this song is in their rotation.
I’ll post a link to the station
I’m listening to @SomaFM on @TuneIn. #NowPlaying
It’s been a while.
Thanks
Ah! From the Grooveyard of Forgotten Favorites (UGH, I miss Rush!)! Thanks, Sam!
Great tune and album. Died before his time. Original member of Kingston Trio.
Never heard of him or the song.
Not original Kingston Trio. He replaced Bob Shane.
Which is why I post it here. I like exposing people to music they have not heard before.
John Stewart replace Dave Guard from the original Kingston Trio.
Correct. Dave Guard. The tall guy with a crew cut.
Years after the Kingston Trio broke up, he did an album with Nick Reynolds called "Revenge of the Budgie" If you're a Trio and/or Stewart fan and you can find this album, it's worth it. Really great stuff and you can hear echoes from the Trio all over it.
I’ve not heard of John Stewart before now, but apparently, many of his songs have worked well for various other singers.
This song here has a nice melody, but the energy of his delivery is low energy, and the first few lines don’t pull me in with great force. He is later joined in the chorus, and that sounds nice.
I’m thinking of another pro level musician of that time:
Glen Campbell would have done quite well with a song like this. Glen was a fine guitarist and eventually developed a full range singing voice, one with the power to make you stop and listen to him. Think Wichita Highway.
I love SOMA also. If you like obscure or less heard classic rock, there is also CRDC (Classic Rock Deep Cuts) on several of the online radio stations. I love it when something I haven’t heard for 40+ years comes on, or I discover a superb song I never heard.
WOW! That brought up distant memories from when I was a kid. I had not head that song since then and had no idea who sang it or what it was. I recognized it instantly though.
And I thank you for that.
Thanks, I’ll check that station out. I like the “deep cuts” stations as you get tired of the same old classics over and over again.
A recent example of this for me was "The Mosquito" by The Doors (post Jim Morrison) that I put on another thread here last week. A local rock station played it as sort of a joke a time or two back in the 1970s and I never heard it again. When I found it on the YouTube, I recognized the song immediately. I also confess that I like it much better today than I did back then. Probably because I've expanded my horizons so much music-wise over the past 50 years that I can appreciate just about any type of music.
Now the 1979 "Bombs Away Dream Babies" album from John Stewart (from which this here song came) was something I had on cassette during that summer. I was coming of age and going on dates for the first time. After one of those dates, one that went rather awkwardly and badly, I drove up and down Revere Beach north of Boston after dropping the girl off with the windows down while blasting this tape. It was one of those hot, sticky summer nights and I pulled over to Kellys where I got an order of fried clams and sat on the seawall in the darkness for an hour or so contemplating my dark future (as it seemed at the time) as the waves came crashing in with this here song running through my head.
I was a huge Fleetwood Mac fan at the time and so to me, this was like a bonus Fleetwood Mac album while I was waiting for "Tusk" to come out (later that fall).
I thought this "Midnight Wind" song was the perfect blend of Stevie Nicks' background singing over Lindsey Buckingham's guitar. In my opinion, this was the best song on the album, even better than the big radio hit "Gold", which also featured Nicks and Buckingham. Even 43 years later, the haunting melody of this song still brings me back to the hot, muggy night of the bad date, the smell of fried clams, the squawking of seagulls and the waves crashing on the beach.
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