Sanford-Townsend Band: "Smoke From a Distant Fire" (1977)

 
This song has pretty much disappeared from the airwaves. I think you will find the beat, amazingly strong vocals by John Townsend, and a first rate horn arrangement well worth your while. This is another example of a great song birthing a band and it would be their greatest achievement. This is how two Alabama boys working in L.A. made good.

According to Songfacts.com,  This is how the song "Smoke From a Distant Fire" came about (as told by John Townsend).  "In the Spring of 1974, Ed Sanford and I had just signed a publishing deal with Chappell Music. They gave us a nice advance and a weekly stipend and for a couple of unknown writers, this was a rare deal. Ed and our friend Steven Stewart (co-writer on Smoke...) were sharing one half of an old duplex in Hollywood at the time. I used to drop by and hang out, write or whatever, almost on a daily basis. Now Steven was an aspiring classical guitarist at the time. He used to stay up 'til the wee hours, sometimes daybreak, bent over his music stand practicing his scales, or some classical piece."

"Steven was driven to become a great player. I was over one morning as Ed was just waking up and Steven hadn't been to bed yet. Ed was complaining about not getting any sleep and barked at Steven, 'When are you gonna stop wasting your time on that classical crap and write something that will make you some money.' Steven picked up his guitar immediately and started playing what I thought was a really cool R&B type rhythm and replied with 'Anybody can write that crap.' I said, 'Apparently you just did' and went straight to the piano and embellished on his idea. While going through some old song ideas in my notebook I always carried, I found one that actually was the title of a poem that Ed had written while in college. I extracted the title because it seemed to be a perfect fit for the chorus idea I had and that all sort of amalgamated into Smoke From A Distant Fire."

You left me here on your way to paradise
You pulled the rug right out from under my life
I know where you goin' to I knew when you came home last night
'Cause your eyes had a mist from the smoke of a distant fire

Lord, I was stunned shoulda' seen it come a long time ago.
When I realized the reality gave me a roll
If things are the same then explain why your kiss is so cold
And that mist in your eyes feels like rain on the fire in my soul

"Smoke From a Distant Fire" was no fluke. The song was professionally done at the famous Muscle Shoals Studios with the legendary Jerry Wexler producing and members of Loggins and Mesina's band sitting in. Kenny Loggins would lend vocals a track on the same album called "Oriental Gate" The band had also worked with Michael McDonald, so it becomes easy to see how this song seems to be the standard bearer of late '70's blue-eyed soul.

In an Amazon review of the album, consumer review states: "If you took Firefall,Seals and Crofts and Orleans put them into the same studio you would have the same general sound and feeling this album generates. The title track "Smoke from a Distant Fire", is an upbeat tune which tells the story of love rejected and illustrates the old saying "What goes around, comes around". Nothing violent or anything of that nature, more simply stated the grass is not always greener on the other side." 

The Sanford-Townsend Band would open for Fleetwood Mac on their historic Rumors tour and they would also play with The Marshal Tucker Band, Foreigner and Charlie Daniels.

The band would release two more albums after their self titles first album and they would not do well. Sanford and Townsend went back to the studios and played backing for others and continued to write.Ed Sanford would write "I Keep Forgettin'" which would be a big song for Michael McDonald in 1982.

Two versions offered here. The first is their performance on Burt Sugarman's Midnight Special. This version let's you "see" how powerful Townsends vocals are. The second is right off of their 1977 album.

Los Lobos: Kiko and the Lavender Moon (1992)

I'm a little bit more on my own with this song post. There seems to be less background on this song than many others I have highlighted.

But then again, that is the point. Here we have yet another underappreciated song by a underrated band.

Los Lobos got started when David Hidalgo and Luis Perez met in hign school in East L.A.(1973). They both liked the same music which included Ry Cooder and Fairport Convention. Music that was not being listened to by their peers. With the addition of schoolmates guitarist Cesar Rosas and bass player Conrad Lozano they started playing top 40 sets around town.

Having tired of the same songlist, the band started melding Mexican, rock and blues into their own music. They would be joined by Steve Berlin, formerly of the Blasters and have been together ever since.

In 1984 they recorded "How Will the Wolf Survive" to wide acclaim. While based on a National Geographic peogram, the title song reflects aspects of their struggling to maintain their cultural music heritage while trying to make it as an American rock band.

In 1987, They would record the Richie Valens covers for the soundtrack of La Bamba. The title song leapt to number one on the charts. For my money, their cover of Jesse Belvin's 1956 hit "Goodnight My Love" is as good as it gets.

Los Lobos would go on to make many albums but would always have the rap that they never had a "hit" that was not a cover. "How Will the Wolf Survive " charted no higher that #78.

They did win some grammy's and can be found on a wide array of soundtrack and special recordings. Notable is their cover of the Little Bob song "I Got Loaded" used in the movie "Bull Duram" and their outstanding version of the Grateful Dead's "Bertha" on the album "Deadicated". 

The band continues to receive critical acclaim, good reviews and possesses a rabid fan base. They remain true to their own brand of music. Thats where "Kiko and the Lavender Moon" comes in.

One might feel upon listening to this track off of their 1992 album "Kiko", that it was a good fit in our Halloween song contest. It has a spooky feel to it and yey the melody and lyrics help you embrace it for what it is. A man flying in the face of reality.

Daytrotter.com had this take on the song:

"Kikoand the Lavender Moon," a song from Los Lobos' 1992 album, "Kiko," sounds like it's a period piece, or a song that's rooted in a year that only current grandmothers and grandfathers remember. It has the feel of a place that we cannot easily get to any longer. It could be virtually impossible, even, a visage of a bygone time or of simple loss. It sounds as if it's from a time when, if you were hungry, you were thin and not the opposite. It seems to come from a place, or a night that's newly arrived - with the red and yellow pepper colors are getting pushed under the horizon by a hue more characterized by ravens and the abyss. It comes from a place at night when the ashtrays have the first blanket of cigarette ash, the joyful sound of caps popping off the tops of bottles is like music, people have gathered and there's a strong aroma of a big family-style dinner wafting out of the kitchen window, into the backyard. Guys are walking around a backyard that's been draped with cheap, hanging lanterns giving off the faintest of dappled light, the grass is a poor excuse for a lawn, now mostly just worn into a dusty, dirty tract. They carry two fistfuls of beer bottles - the glass of three or four bottles pushed tightly together in a muted clink and a deliberate, but brisk walk from the ice-filled trough back to the gang of empty-handers, his responsibility officially almost fulfilled.

Louis Perez stated in an interview that the song eminated from childhood memories of his home and his mothers altar on a dresser.  He stated, "There's a point where all songwriters fall into this vacuum where it seems so amorphic and almost surreal...all of us were on this crazy trip. It was like a canoe lost in the fog, all of us right there paddling away, and knowing we just have to paddle. We don't no where we are going, but trusted it."

"He always sleeps
Till the sun goes down
He never wakes
Till no one's around
He never stops
Can't catch his breath
It's always there
Scares him to death"

I offer two versions here. The first is an intimate version in a studio where the horns are replaced by keyboards, and the second is the official video for the song. A deluxe reissue of Kiko was released last year.