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December 2005
Here's hoping everyone has a Merry Christmas, and a peaceful and prosperous New Year. My hopes for the New Year include a stop in San Diego (or at least near) for the NRPS west coast tour, and prayers for Marmaduke for improving health. I would love to see him be able to hit the road for some shows in the future. Thanks to all of you for stopping by the ol blog, and would like to hear from you all soon.
Dennis
6:03 PM - Dec. 25, 2005 - {2} - View more entries tagged with: None
I know it's been a while since I posted anything new. Hope I haven't lost both of my readers;-) Before I get started on this post, lets help out a brother. Blog participant Tom needs our help. He needs to bolster his musical library of live NRPS shows, but doesn't have anything to trade, yet. I'll start by doing a few B&P for him, how about the rest of you? His e-mail address is tgeren@comcast.net or just contact me through the blog. Contact him with what you have and work out a B&P. Lets get some trading and B&P going around. Now on with the post.
I have always liked the music of Skip ever since the It Was I / Cherry Pie days of Skip and Flip. I have always maintained that the best version of the Byrds was McGuinn, Skip, Gene Parsons and Clarence White. His contribution to NRPS is monumental. I have seen NRPS 3 times, all in 1974 with Skip. Some of his best work was with the Flying Burrito Brothers in the 80's. He was also an accomplished pianist, and a great example of what I call "Lead Bass".
His distinctive vocals were a joy to listen to. He spoke (and sang) fluent Italian. A truly multi talented musician.
There was almost more to this story. There was a demo called "Starlite Special" (from from the NRPS song "Strangers on a Train"). This is from his lady Peggy regarding the demo.
It is one he and I put together here in his studio in the house. It is a compilation from several older material sources which we assembled and tweaked a little to meet his perfectionist standards. When it was finished it was sent out to several producers around the country. Among them was Burnside Records in Portland. We hand delivered it to Terry Currier late one night when we went up to see Gene Parsons perform. Later Terry contacted Skip and wanted to produce a CD. We worked at a studio in Portland for 2 days, but then Skip's alzheimers began to cause him problems playing, so we had to stop in the middle and it was never finished.
If not for the Alzheimers, there would have been another collection of Skip's great work. Wish it could have been finished. I'll bet it would have been great.
Picture provided by Peggy (her favorite) from her collection

10:24 PM - Dec. 17, 2005 - {3} - View more entries tagged with: The Band Members
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