HELLO AGAIN, SONG.

I'm not a big Arlo Guthrie fan. I don't have any of his records, but he doesn't bug me. He was counter culture enough in his day and, shit, his dad was Woody Guthrie. I haven't heard full albums of his in years. But I was checking up on Tibbles's posts over at Time Goes By, because it's been a while. His name is Peter Tibbles, but he has too perfect of a last name to not use it by itself. Tibbles. Sounds like a character in a movie. (Hope you don't mind Peter!) Tibbles has tastes that intersect mine a lot, but he gets into stuff that's way off my radar. Like Guthrie's "Coming Into Los Angeles", a song about flying into L.A. with a bunch of weed. I knew the song, but it's been years since I've heard it. What the fuck. Click.

Wow. My ear has changed in the last few decades. When I first heard the song, in my teens, smuggling weed into L.A. seemed exotic, dangerous. Nowadays, you can buy it in a store. But that's not the big difference, When I heard it today I was struck by the awesome guitar work. It's just too good, and there's more than one expert picker playing simultaneously. How many, I'm not sure. But a look at Wikipedia tells me that there were no fewer than four that played on the LP that contains this song. Check this: Ry Cooder. James Burton. Clarence White. Gene Parsons. Man, any pair of those names would be enough. Make it three and you have a country rock Blue Öyster Cult going on.

~ NOTE: ALL MEDIA IS HOSTED BY THE BLOGS & SITES NAMED BELOW ~

Listen:
Arlo Guthrie - Coming into Los Angeles mp3 at Time Goes By