THE GREATEST SONGS OF THE 1960s THAT NO ONE HAS EVER HEARD
1,744) The Natty Bumpo — “Ballad to Jake”
Sunshine out of Washington D.C.?! Well, yes, unreleased sunshine pop from the legendary folkies turned psychsters to brighten your day.
Sunrise.music tells us of the Natty Bumpo’s unreleased songs:
A mighty fine collection of American Sunshine Psych at its finest. At times this band reminds one somewhat of Pink Floyd, but they combine that with Association-esque vocal treatments. Great vocals, a real sense for the psychedelic touch, and a talent for composition and skilled musicianship sets these folks apart from a mere garage phenomenon. Unfairly dissed by Philips Records, they recorded a full LP’s worth of great music . . . . A bit rough and lo-fi in places, but it is miraculous we still have it all.
https://www.discogs.com/release/10361935-The-Natty-Bumpo-1967-68
Mike Apichella:
Hippies, bohemians, teenagers, college kids, and local entertainment mavens from all over the mid-Atlantic flocked to the nation’s capital to witness . . . 24-year-old [Jimi Hendrix (see #1,577)] . . . from August 9th to August 13th, 1967. . . . [T]hese gigs were revolutionary. . . . The Natty Bumpo . . . . was booked as the support act for every night of the . . . five-night stand. . . . [T]heir appearances with Hendrix solidified them as major local proponents of the DC hippie scene. Marty Baum and Charles Smith formed The Natty Bumpo as a folk group during the early-1960s while still in college, living together and jamming . . . . Their name came from the main character in James Fennimore Cooper’s The Deerslayer, a book whose rustic themes complimented Bumpo’s organic early work. By the mid-60s folk musicians were turning on and plugging in. With an ever-changing support group of musicians, Baum and Smith quickly moved from folk to folk-rock and finally found a unique voice through psychedelia. It was at this point the band gained a strong local following and attention from ambitious twentysomething music promoter [Leonard] Schwab and local music legend Ray Vernon.
Leonard Schwab: “I never had a contract . . . my work with them was based on an admiration and trust that was more important than paper. . . . I went to hear them at a recording session . . . . I thought they were trying to sound too much like The Mamas and Papas [see #1,734] but did hear some things that interested me, especially in their creativity. I arranged for them to make some demo tapes[.”] . . .
[T]he . . . sessions sound nothing like The Mama’s & The Papa’s. . . . a long-lost holy grail of experimental psychedelia. Their mesh of dissonance, ambience, and pop craft equals the weirdest sides of The Velvet Underground, Lothar & The Hand People, Pearls Before Swine [see #1,408] . . . . Once the . . . demo was mastered and replicated, Schwab helped propel the innovative group toward stardom. . . . “I spoke to my friend in New York who was the agent for The Toys and asked if he’d be interested in hearing their tape. He said okay, so Marty [Baum] and I boarded a Trailways bus . . . and headed for NYC. The agent . . . suggested we go see a friend of his [at] Mercury Records. He liked what he heard also and said that he would like to hear the band in person. Marty said that they were going to do a small concert in a DC church and arrangements were made to see them in person at the concert. They were signed to the label shortly thereafter.” . . . Bumpo’s 1967 gig at Christ Episcopal Church in southeast DC. Marty Baum and [Washington] Star writer Ann Groer gave a spirited outline of the concert’s program of music and events in a late ’67 edition of the paper: “. . . . [S]ingers and sanctuary will be bathed in kaleidoscopic color from films, slides, and stroboscopic light…” The Bumpo wowed their audience with standard rock instrumentation augmented by bells, and wind instruments. They performed a psychedelic version of “Neverland” from the musical Peter Pan. Charles Smith contributed the B-side to their first major label single, a tribute to fairy tales and child-like wonder called “Legends”. With glittering production from psych-pop titan Hugh McCracken, the song contrasts its A-side (a noisy cover of . . . “Theme From Valley Of The Dolls”). Walls of clustered harmonies and reverb effects make “Legends” yet another prime showpiece for Bumpo’s more lysergic elements. As the happy late-1960s turned into the seedy 1970s, Natty Bumpo’s psych-pop shimmer had trouble maintaining its glow. Before splitting up in the early-70s the band issued an obscure second single on Phillips in 1968.
https://www.splicetoday.com/music/detour-on-the-road-to-fame
Bassist and drummer William Havu recalls:
“We were a pretty big deal in D.C. in ’67,” Havu reminisces. “We were part rock, part folk. There were anywhere from four to seven of us at any given time, depending on additional musicians that we needed. We wrote our own material; we didn’t cover anybody. We had a couple of songs that got pretty popular on the East Coast.” The band was set to make its big break…and then Dionne Warwick got in the way. “The big blow was our manager at the time for Mercury bought the rights to the theme song for Valley of the Dolls, and so we recorded a version of that with a fourteen-piece backup orchestra that was pretty elaborate,” Havu explains. “And Dionne Warwick, much to our chagrin later, had also gotten the rights. Our manager delayed the release of our single because the movie was going to be delayed, and he wanted it to coordinate with the release of the movie. Well, Dionne didn’t wait.” Not long after she stole the band’s thunder, the members of Natty Bumppo parted ways . . . . But [Havu] still looks back on those days fondly. “It was heady times. It was a lot of alcohol and a lot of drugs,” he says with a chuckle.
https://www.westword.com/arts-culture/william-havu-gallery-fifty-year-arts-career-17622597/
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