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Puddle City Bluegrass Band, 1971 - Love Please Come Home | |||||||
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| The Puddle City Bluegrass Band had a brief but intense life spanning just a little over three years from 1969 to 1972. |
| Meeting initially in the large, all-tile bathroom in the basement of Reed College's Elliot Hall (right next to the room that housed the brand new computer), the band consisted almost entirely of Reed College students through its entire existence. |
| The band's early fans were members of the Reed community (e.g. James Dickey, who wrote Deliverance -- one of Puddle City's showpiece instrumentals appears in the movie. . . coincidence?) but later fans included people from all over the northwest. |
| The band moved to Olympia in 1971 when Peter got a job on the staff and teaching at the Evergreen State College due to his multidisciplinary interests in the arts and computers. The band used Olympia as its base to play a busy schedule of weekly gigs in both Portland and Seattle as well as concerts, dances, parties, and other special events anywhere within driving distance. |
| Fortunately, a producer at Rex Recording studios became interested in the band and recorded a few 45s, and the Evergreen State College had a beautiful new recording studio that the band helped try out by providing music for fledgeling engineers to record, and Portland's Michael O'Rourke recorded several local performances of the band to include on his anthology of NW bluegrass called Oregon Territory, so there are some audio recordings of the band available. |
| Further, the Evergreen Library loaned out video equipment to staff and students, so one evening the band brought a video tape deck and camera to their weekly Frankenstein's Tavern gig in Portland and recorded the first set of their usual four hour performance. In 1971 video cameras needed a lot of light, so these clips are dark, but otherwise remarkably free of technical problems (other than the noisy tavern crowd). |
left to right: David Butts - guitar, Greg Booth - mandolin, Peter Langston - guitar, Chris Montague - banjo, & Diane Desbrisay - fiddle. Hidden in back: Gray Pederson - bass. |
In this early photograph the band is recreating its sensational
death-defying
triple-banjo rotating spectacle supersolo for an esoteric tune called
Foggy Mountain Breakdown while fiddler Diane looks on in disbelief.
left to right: parts of Greg Booth, Dave Butts, and Chris Montague, each playing half of two different banjos, a distant fan wondering what we're doing, Peter Langston playing guitar, Gray Pederson playing bass, & Diane Desbrisay trying to pretend she doesn't know us. |
This card carries the image of one of two realistic paintings of the band created by a fan, Constance Earnshaw -- thanks, Connie! (Click on the card to see the original poster.) |
An early photo of the band posing on Greg's car left to right: David, Diane, Chris, Greg, Peter, Gray. |
Puddle City performing in the Reed College Coffeeshop Top, left to right: Peter, Greg, Gray, & David. Bottom, left to right: Gray, Peter's hat, Peter, & Greg. |
The band convinced Frankenstein's Tavern on Front Street in Portland to try live music (thanks, Michael!) and it quickly became the local bluegrass hotspot; left to right: Peter, Chris, Diane, David, & Greg. |
2/12/72
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4/1/72
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4/28/72 |
7/21/72 |
| (Click on any poster to see a larger version.) | |
Puddle City released two 45-rpm records (singles) on the Cricket label. It's too bad the movie Deliverance didn't come out a bit earlier... |
Greg, Sharyle, and Peter jam with washboard player Billy Hults (between Greg and Sharyle with cigarette). Well, okay, so we were actually pretending not to notice Billy because we knew he'd get all the applause if he stuck around. You can hear him get all the applause on the CD of our Civic Auditorium set (on "Bye Bye Blues" -- see below). |
The band in its 1972 form, top step to bottom: Chris Montague (with the banjo), Kishka (with the dog collar), Greg Booth (with the mandolin), Sharyle Patton (with the look), Tom Curry (with the fiddle), and Peter Langston (with the guitar). |
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Visit the Puddle City Bluegrass Band's Page on MySpace
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If you're interested in getting a Puddle City T-shirt or other memento of the band, check out the Puddle City Bluegrass Band Shop on CafePress. |
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Puddle City on CD?
While we're at it,
I do have a recording of a Puddle City concert appearance
(at the Portland Civic Auditorium in April, 1972).
Rocky Run
· Little Maggie
· Fiddle Medley
· Bye Bye Blues
· Rocky Top
· Same Old Man Working At The Mill
· Blackberry Blossom
· Old Slewfoot
· I Don't Love Nobody
· The Cuckoo
· Black Mountain Rag
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