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Today in history

David Clayton Thomsett Thomas

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David Clayton Thomsett Thomas

David Clayton-Thomas at the 38th annual Festival of Friends at Hamilton, Ontario’s Ancaster Fairgrounds on August 11, 2013

Born September 13, 1941

David Clayton Thomsett Thomas

David Clayton Thomsett Thomas

Canadian born in England

From his site: David in wartime England, 1942

David Clayton Thomas’s father, Fred Thomsett, was a Canadian soldier serving in England during World War II. Thomas’s mother, Freda May Smith met Thomsett while playing the piano to entertain troops at a London hospital.

David Henry Thomsett was born  in Surrey, England. After the war, the family settled in Willowdale, a suburb of Toronto. David and his father had a difficult relationship and David ran away when he was 14.

He became homeless, slept in parked cars or abandoned buildings, and stole food and clothing to survive.

David Clayton Thomsett Thomas

Canadian jails

Authorities arrested him several times and Thomas lived his teen years jails and reformatories. By a fortunate chance, a released inmate left Thomas an old guitar. His love of music, perhaps remembering his mother’s love, too, kindled.

David Clayton Thomsett Thomas

Freed Canadian

Released in 1962, he found Toronto’s music scene.  Ronnie Hawkins, famous for breaking in the members of The Band, helped Thomas.

David Clayton Thomsett Thomas

David Clayton Thomas

He became David Clayton Thomas to distance himself from his former self and eventually fronted his own band: David Clayton-Thomas and The Fabulous Shays. Their 1964 successful recording of John Lee Hookers’ “Boom Boom” led to an appearance on the American TV show, Hullabaloo.

Thomas began to make blues his mainstay. His next band, The Bossmen, uniquely included jazz musicians. In 1966, the Bossman had a hit with the song “Brainwashed” written by Thomas.

David Clayton Thomsett Thomas

Blood, Sweat and Tears

The same year, Thomas traveled to NYC with John Lee Hooker and stayed there when Hooker left for Europe. Bobby Colomby, Blood, Sweat and Tears drummer, heard Thomas sing and invited him to join the re-aligned band.

The first album, Blood, Sweat and Tears, with Thomas was BS & T’s most successful. Released on December 11, 1968 it reached Billboard’s #1 album on March 29, 1969. It stayed a top album for seven weeks altogether. Five top singles came from the album, and it received a Grammy Award for Album of the Year in 1970.

The album also earned them an invitation to the Woodstock Music and Art Fair.

David Clayton Thomsett Thomas

Post BS & T

Add Thomas’s name to the long and ever-growing list of musicians who found the pace of life on the road too grueling. Despite the band’s success, he left the group in 1972.

He did not leave music.

Thomas composed for Ella Fitzgerald, James Brown, Maynard Ferguson, and others.  He has released his own albums and continues to perform today.

Albums

Year Album Title Record Label
1965 David Clayton Thomas and the Shays à Go-Go Roman
1966 David Clayton Thomas Sings Like It Is! Roman
1969 David Clayton-Thomas! Decca
1972 David Clayton-Thomas Columbia
1972 Tequila Sunrise Columbia
1973 David Clayton-Thomas (Harmony Junction) RCA
1977 Clayton ABC Music
1996 Blue Plate Special DCT
1999 Bloodlines DCT
2001 The Christmas Album Fontana North / Maplecore
2005 Aurora Justin Time
2006 In Concert: A Musical Biography Justin Time
2008 The Evergreens Fontana North / Maplecore
2009 Spectrum
2010 Soul Ballads Fuel
2013 A Blues for the New World Antoinette
2015 Combo Audio & Video Labs, Inc.
2016 Canadiana Antoinette / Ils / Universal
2018 Mobius Ils
2019 Say Somethin’ Antoinette
David Clayton Thomsett Thomas
Today in history

Nine Eleven Sleep Alone Why

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Nine Eleven Sleep Alone Why

September 11, 2001

Nine Eleven Sleep Alone Why
September 15, 2001
Nine Eleven Sleep Alone Why
Cliffside Park High School. Cliffside Park, NJ

It was a magnificent fall day in late summer. It is less than 8 miles from the school to the World Trade Center. We can see the Towers from the roof.

I was in the main hallway when I met Jackie, a social studies teacher. She said the news had reported a plane flew into one of the Towers. My first thought was remembering that a plane had once hit the Empire State Building, but I needed to continue my day as everyone was doing.

When the second plane hit the other Tower, our day stopped. TVs on in every classroom. Then Jackie told me that a Tower had collapsed.

“You mean the part above where the plane had hit.” How could a building like that actually collapse. Completely collapse.

Parents started to call. Parents came in. Parents brought their children home.  The safety of home?

Nine Eleven Sleep Alone Why

Why?

I saw a mother picking up her daughter. Both crying. A clear day had become a mental fog. Not knowing what to say, but knowing I should say something, I cliché’d: “It’ll be OK.”

It wasn’t. The son, the brother, was in one of the Towers. His body never found. Why?

Nine Eleven Sleep Alone Why

Job interview

Our son was in the city that day for a job interview.

Downtown.

He later told us that when he entered the building he could see the Towers. When he left the building, the Towers were gone. He finally got across the river and met us in a shopping mall’s completely empy parking lot. Stores closed. He was with one other person, a young woman in similar straits.

Our days became an occasional waft of burning smell and an eerie silence until fighter jets suddenly and alarmingly screeched overhead.

Nine Eleven Sleep Alone Why

Sleep Alone Why

as the sun was set
and the pieces of light touch your hair
perfect love come softly
with the dawn, the dawn
city once full of people
desolate, is desolate
we look back in
to the ruins where we played
at least we were together
holding hands
flying through the sky
at least we were together
holding hands
flying through the sky
skytouch your hand
you touch the back of my hand
so many empty nights
just waiting for this, for this
standing there
all heading downstream
unsteady island
we hear nothing, nothing at least we were together
holding hands
flying through the sky
at least we were together
holding hands
flying through the sky
skyat least we were together
holding hands
flying through the sky
at least we were together
holding hands
flying through the sky
at least we were together
holding hands
flying through the sky
at least we were together
holding hands
flying through the sky
sky

 

Nine Eleven Sleep Alone Why
Today in history

Grateful Dead Ron Pigpen McKernan

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Grateful Dead Ron Pigpen McKernan

September 8, 1945 – March 8, 1973

“Bring Me My Shotgun” @ Family Dog At The Great Highway, San Francisco, CA, April 18, 1970
Grateful Dead Ron Pigpen McKernan

Grateful Dead Ron Pigpen McKernan

Blues roots

The Grateful Dead with Pigpen were a different band than without. Of course, the Dead went through several personnel and style changes over its time. The Dead themselves were not always the instigators of those changes. The blues-based approach Pigpen brought to the band gave it much more a rock and roll feel than any  of the band’s other incarnations.

Unlike most other of the young musicians of the 1960s, Pigpen came to the blues mainly through his father. Phil a blues enthusiast himself and a DJ on station KDIA, a black radio station.

Grateful Dead Ron Pigpen McKernan

Self taught

Rod taught himself piano, guitar and harmonica. When he moved with his family to Palo Alto, California he befriended  Jerry Garcia.  Rod also collected a huge number of blues 78 recordings which also led him to befriend John Fahey and future Canned Heat singer Bob “Bear” Hite.

Along the way Rod McKernan became Pigpen. How depends on who you ask, but answers are many offered lovingly. Pigpen entered Jerry Garcia’s musical orbit and became part of that orbits named permutations: the Zodiacs, Mother McCree’s Uptown Jug Champions, the Warlock, and finally the Grateful Dead.

Perhaps a much an indictment of the other members’ weak vocals as a compliment of his, Pigpen became the Dead’s main vocalist. For fans like me, his renditions of Buddy Holly’s  “Not Fade Away” or his half-hour plus “Turn On Your Love Light” will always be his songs.

Beverages not blotters

Unlike the other members of the group, Pigpen’s drug choice was alcohol. That choice also endeared him to Janis Joplin who preferred beverages to blotters.

As the Dead moved into more extended jams that relied less on keyboards, Pigpen’s place in the band diminished, though his reliance on alcohol did not.

Health

Pigpen’s health declined and he had to leave the band to recover. His hiatus was between August and December 1971. For a band that seemed to be always on the road, he missed many shows.

Health issues again forced him to leave the band. His last show with them was on June 17, 1972, at the Hollywood Bowl, in Los Angeles.

On March 8, 1973, aged 27 he was found dead of a gastrointestinal hemorrhage. A sad addition to the 27 Club.

Grateful Dead Ron Pigpen McKernan

Next time you have 33 minutes and 41 seconds, give Pigpen a listen (again).

Grateful Dead Ron Pigpen McKernan