Customer Reviews

It's a Beautiful Day

5 star:		(99)
4 star:		(25)
3 star:		(6)
2 star:		(4)
1 star:		(10)

 

 

The first time I heard this, It's a Beautiful Day's first album, it became a part of me. The year was 1969, I had just entered middle school and was discovering all the great music I'd missed: MC5, Mothers of Invention, Velvet Underground, Pentangle, on and on. Having been raised with classical, blues, jazz and show tunes, I sometimes found the simplicity of so-called rock `n' roll artists and groups to be annoying and shallow. SO, when I first heard the flowing listenability of "White Bird" I knew that I was hearing a work that would be with me forever.

"White Bird" actually got air play from one of the local progressive stations but the rest of this set became all mine, a private emotional journey that remains as much a part of my life as my family and every cherished personal experience. In "White Bird," everything soars, David LaFlamme's double tracked violin, the dual vocals, the now-vintage Hammond B3; all convey an atmosphere of freedom that the words deny. "Hot Summer Day" is the musical version of a stroll in the woods on a sultry, lazy day, memories of summers past and the reminiscence of such a day that one feels in the dead of Winter. "Wasted Union Blues" comes the closest to portraying through music what one feels when altered states are waning and sleep refuses to offer relief. "Girl With No Eyes" is a delicate yet intense statement of feminine isolation and yearning. The trio of "Bombay Calling," "Bulgaria" and `Time Is," disparate themes and textures combined into one slippery tour-de-force, take a listener through Asian majesty, Eastern European mystery and finally into a dizzying 9 minutes of existentialism in which time really may be believed by lovers to be "an eternity."

The sentiments and, indeed, sound of It's a Beautiful Day are extremely late `60's San Francisco; the performances are loose compared to today's standards, the lyrics are very "love"-oriented and the most technicality one can expect from the recording is, as previously stated, a few primitive overdubs. Still, every song carries the full potential of emotion possible, the vocal and instrumental blends are, though dated, still timelessly gorgeous in interplay and complement. I have worn out 3 vinyl copies, 4 cassettes and am on my second CD and, after 32 years and countless exposure to evolving musical forms later, I still find the melodies and musicianship of this long forgotten classic captivating me, holding my attention from first note to last. If only this set of impeccably crafted songs and musical pieces did not defy categorization, it would probably be better known next to its contemporaries like Hendrix's Axis Bold As Love, Joplin/Big Brother's Cheap Thrills, the Grateful Dead's very first live album, and the Beatles' Sgt. Pepper. As history has written the fate of It's a Beautiful Day, those who survive beyond their era or die in their prime get the glory leaving this jewel buried in the sands of time. Anyone willing to unearth it is in for considerable wonder indeed.

I've read professional music reviews berating this album and calling It's A Beautiful Day the worst band to come out of San Francisco. Most if not all of these are by New York music reviewers who have there own East Coast darlings. They weren't part of this music scene so it must be bad. These reviewers are simple minded and have short attention spans. They don't like anything that is rich, complex or lasts more than 3 minutes. They don't appreciate the music in Rock Music.

The groups name and some of the lyrics do reflect the Flower Power sentiments of the time. But most of the song writing is strong and the music is rich and complex. It is a mixture of rock, psychodelic and early progressive styles. It was typical of the San Francisco sound during a brief span of the late sixties. It features violin and various keyboards. There is also some good guitar playing here. There's a bluesy number (Hot Summer Day) and a rock number (Wasted Union Blues). The second side is a suite of jazzy tunes, culiminating in Time Is that is reminisent of (a ripoff of?) the Chambers Brothers' Time Has Come Today.

Although they only had one classic album, It's a Beautiful was had quite an influence on later bands (NY critics would say a bad influence). Deep Purple took the opening for Bombay Calling and used it in Child in Time.

This band has a stormy history. Linda LaFlamme (wife or sister?) left after the first album and they were never the same. The second album (Marrying Maiden) is a nice folksy album. The third album (Choice Quality Stuff/Anytime) has a great cover but is mediocre rock with slight tints of the original sound. The fourth album is a fairly good live set of the hits. The fifth album (Today) only has one of the original members and isn't very good. This first album wasn't available for a long period, making the LP one of the most valuable rock collectibles. It has poppped up as in import from time to time. Apparently, some of the CD versions are produced by a ruthless manager. Read about that in the earlier reviews.

Please do not buy this CD or any other CD by San Francisco Sound...This label is owned by Matthew Katz and ALL of the money goes to him and none of it to the musicians.The LaFlammes and the rest of the band have NEVER gotten one penny from the sale of these CDs...As a matter of fact, the original musicians on this album actually owe Katz almost a million dollars for having the nerve to use the name It's A Beautiful Day, EVEN THOUGH THOSE SAME PEOPLE ARE ON THE ORIGINAL ALBUM....Matthew Katz is a former manager that worked for the original musicians of It's A Beautiful Day for less than 6 months in 1968...Because of a clause in his contract, he proceeded to sue these musicians for over 30 years..Katz has sued many people including the Jefferson Airplane, Moby Grape,It's A Beautiful Day, Sony Corporation, and hundreds of other people...He's even sued his own attorneys!!!..All of these cases are in Superior Court in San Francisco..If you buy this CD, then you will be enabling Katz to sue even more people...There was a German import under the TRC label of all four IABD albums on CD a couple of years ago but Katz sued them as well..You can find out more about this person by doing a search for the Moby Grape website...It has the actual court documents to prove it....Please DO NOT buy this CD...It's one of the longest lawsuits in Rock and Roll history

After hearing all the BS about Matthew Katz and his San Francisco Sound label, well, I'm happy that I got an old Dutch vinyl copy of this on CBS. My dad bought that LP in 1979 (or 1980, not sure) and it still plays fine, no skips, to this day! Everytime I hear this album, I am never short of amazed. Great music and great production, with wonderful vocals and violin from David LaFlamme and nice backing vocals from Patti Santos (Linda LaFlamme never did any backing vocals, she handled the keyboards here). "White Bird" might be the most popular cut here, but there's other goodies here like "Hot Summer Day", "Wasted Union Blues", and all of side two (the last three songs). "Time Is" features such a killer drum solo it might even convince those who can't stand drum solos. And if you're a prog rock fan, like I am, this will be of big interest to you, thanks to the album's blend of rock, jazz, folk, and classical ("Girl With No Eyes" even has harpsichord and sounds very European). This album is generally assumed to be enjoyed only by those who lived through the 1960s, but guess what? I was born in 1972 and I like this album very much myself and I surprise the Baby Boomers very much when I bring up It's A Beautiful Day. Of course, if my dad never owned this album, I probably would not be aware of this band. With music like this, you begin to wonder why the current generation of kids listen to N' Sync, the Backstreet Boys, Christina Aguilera, and Britney Spears.

This CD was sourced from an LP record. Almost as an omen, "Bombay Calling," which opened the second side of the LP, starts with a "wow" (speed error). My Columbia LP sounds better! In fact, completely bypass this piece of junk, go to http://www.amazon.co.uk and buy the Columbia 2-fer that also includes the group's second album, MARRYING MAIDEN. In fact, even with foreign shipping, it works out cheaper than buying the two awful domestic issues!

I am pretty sure I bought this album in 1972 when I was 15 years old. It was one of those albums that I played over and over and over along with Sgt. Pepper, LA Woman, Henry The Human Fly (Richard Thompon's awesome debut that is so hard to find), Harvest, Madman Across The Water (Pre-Liberaceation Elton), Led Zep II, Crosby, Stills & Nash, Aqualung, hmmm and a few others including "Don't Crush That Drawf, Hand me the Pliers" (If you don't know that one...ya gotta look it up!) But there is NOTHING like the entire album experience that is "It's A Beautiful Day" Abbey Road is an "album" not a collection of songs and so is "It's A Beautiful Day" from the album cover to the violin, the haunting poetry of the lyrics, the perfect interplay of the vocalists. White Bird is the only decent song? Please....and I do generally hate drum solos...but the way that "Time Is" it segues back into..."I was fly..." It is all the the love.

Wrong, wrong, wrong. It was a wonderful era that Mike obviously never experienced. It's A Beautiful Day was a landmark, breaktrough album when it came out. I believe it was 1969-70 or so, in the summer. At the height of the anti-war / hippie movements. White bird and the rest of the album set a trend for phychedelic folk rock. I saw them twice in concert and was mesmerized by the harmonies between David & Linda as well as David (on his clear lucite violin) and the lead guitarist. Beautiful relavant and thought provoking. One of the best concerts I have attended, and I attended alot in that era. I'm sorry that Mike missed this one.

The "White Bird" album, so called because the actual title of the album was "It's a Beautiful Day," was the beginning of three tightly crafted, hard to categorize albums by this six/seven person group. There was a fourth album, but by the time it came out Beautiful Day had had its run.

"White Bird" brought this group into national prominence, and for the time period of late 60s, early-to-mid 70s, Beautiful Day received its share of fm air time, and White Bird was wildly popular. David LaFlamme was the brain-trust behind Beautiful Day, who, along with Linda LaFlamme and Vince Wallace, co-wrote the all of the songs on White Bird. LaFlamme produced what is arguably their finest album ("Marrying Maiden" and "Choice Quality Stuff" did not have a "break-out" tune along the lines of White Bird.)

All of the songs from the original album are represented on the CD, but sadly it appears that they are not in the c! ! orrect order. White Bird kicked off side one of the vinyl, which set the album apart from any other at the time with its illusions to jazzy rock and roll, and clear harmonies.

From the first plucks of LaFlamme's violin to the perfectly constructed vocals of both LaFlamme and Patti Santos (Linda LaFlamme was not the vocalist, by the way), White Bird takes flight and we soar somewhere above the clouds - starting slow and ending in crescendo.

Which pretty much describes the entire album - it starts off lyrically rich with White Bird and ends in crescendo with Time Is. By the time you've finished off all 9-plus minutes of Time Is, you're as sweaty as LaFlamme was when he was beating and stroking his violin into submission.

After Beautiful Day's time in the sun, LaFlamme toured the smaller unversity venues, but by then (late 70s), the bird had flown and disco was waiting in the wings.

Oh, well, We still have the vinyls, and now we have one CD. It's a start. David LaF! ! lamme and Patti Santos need to reappear and rejoin and once! again it will be a Beautiful Day for all of us.

P.S. "I'm So Tired" was never a Beautiful Day tune. It's a Beatle tune from the White Album.

I saw It's a Beautiful Day in 1969 when they opened for Cream at the Oakland Coliseum. I saw It's a Beautiful Day again, a few years later, at Winterland in San Francisco. They were on the same bill as Van Morrison and Elvin Bishop.

White Bird. The song opens with a sustained organ chord. A plucked violin motif makes an appearance, and this is followed by a simple tune by a male/female duet. So far, we find the same two chords being repeated over and over, and one suspects that this might be a ska tune. Remember, ska is a very repetitive form of pop music. But finally another chord appears. A violin solo is heard. The solo is finely hewn, as fine as Jeff Beck's short solo on, for example, Lost Woman or Evil Hearted You. The male/female duet appears again. Then, there is a dramatic interlude in a minor key. At this point in the tune, one suspects that White Bird should be a classic rock'n'roll tune. There's another duet. A quiet, understated instrumental unfolds, gains momentum, but is always somewhat restrained. In the entire realm of rock'n'roll, an understated, momentum-gaining interlude of equal greatness can only be found in one place: This place is the understated, tension building minute in the middle of Dark Star, on the Grateful Dead's Live/Dead album. Back to the review of White Bird. Another violin solo, double tracked, is then heard. This solo ends in a high trill. The male/female duet returns, repeating the opening tune. White Bird is a perfect rock'n'roll song. If I had my way, White Bird would be put on a compilation with White Ship by H.P.Lovecraft. The styles of White Bird and White Ship go well together.

Hot Summer Day. This song is a repetitive number, ideal as a filler, and based on a descending chord pattern.

Wasted Union Blues. This song was used as the opening number for the 1969 show in the Oakland Coliseum. Wasted Union Blues is mostly noise. I would say that this song is a waste.

Girl With No Eyes. This song is an attractive little song. As with Hot Summer Day, this song is based on a descending chord pattern, repeated over and over. The song features a gorgeous and creative middle part, worthy of repeated listenings. Now, if only the song had been recorded in another language, so I wouldn't have to listen to the gruesome-sounding title, sung over and over.

Bombay Calling. Bombay Calling is an excellent instrumental, nearly equal to anything recorded by the Ventures. The middle part of Bombay Calling contains an attractive hook. Bombay Calling is catchy, and suitable for recording on your cassette or burning into your C.D. of favorites from the '60s.

Bulgaria. This song begins with a gong, and is followed by an attractive little violin melody. Fortunately, the melody is an attractive one, since it is repeated over and over and over and over and over and over, first like a dirge, and then later on like a glorious anthem.

Time Is. Time is is not really a song or a composition. It is more like a jam session. Time Is reminds me of Revolution, a jam session found on Love's second album. Love's second album is one of the finest albums in rock'n'roll, but it is marred by Revolution.

White Bird apparently is a classic in rock'n'roll. It does not contain any of the bombastic overtones found in most of the other songs of the album being reviewed. Bombay Calling is worth mentioning again, as it is a skillfully hewn instrumental. But if you like your rock'n'roll with soaring violin solos, this album should not be first on your list. I would choose Sea Train's first album. Sea Train's first album is the album containing Let the Duchess No, As I Lay Losing, and Sweet Creek's Suite. Sea Train features Richard Greene on fiddle, and former members of the Blues Project.

If I could kneel to the gods of the recording industry, I would do so in thanks for re-releasing this CD. Sadly, legal disputes have kept it off the shelves for 20 years, guaranteeing deep grooves in my last remaining vinyl copy. To hear the magnificent "White Bird" again in all its glory is wonderful. It is in my TOP 5 list - and this list goes back 50 years! May Matthew Katz and his ilk be forever drowned by the wonderful sounds and creativity of "It's A Beautiful Day."