Mexico - Souther Hillman Furay Band
In Mexico, last Saturday was the "Day of the Dead", the day when Mexicans welcome back their dead relatives to spend the day with them, give them gifts, join in meals and catch up with all the gossip. Come midnight, though, all the spirits have to go on their way, never to bother their living relatives again until the same day next year.
The Uncle Stylus blog is in danger of becoming an internet equivalent, never quite catching up with the ever replenishing queue of musicians outside the pearly gates. So maybe once a year, they too will come back and play for us.
John David Souther, known as JD Souther, died on September 17th in his home near Albuquerque, New Mexico. Souther was one of the flock of singer/songwriters that congregated in and around Los Angeles in the 1970's, in his case with the emphasis on the "songwriter" half of the epithet, writing many songs primarily for the Eagles and Linda Ronstadt, as well as others.
When he first moved to California in 1969, Souther met Glenn Frey and they paired up to become the duo Longbranch Pennywhistle. He also introduced Frey to Ronstadt and was therefore key to the formation of the Eagles, who started out as her backing band. He even turned down an offer to join them!
He then joined the Souther Hillman Furay Band, a proposed supergroup comprising Chris Hillman of the Byrds, and Ritchie Furay of Buffalo Springfield which turned out to be not so super in the eyes of the record-buying public. There were also other guys in the group, specifically Paul Harris, Joe Lala and Al Perkins (pictured above) from the underrated Stephen Stills band Manassas but they didn't make the group's name. I guess "the Souther Hillman Furay Harris Lala Perkins band doesn't quite run off the tongue in the same way. They folded after two LPs, the first of which did make the US Album Top Twenty, but the second, which is as good as the first, bombed.
"Mexico" is from this, "Trouble in Paradise", written and sung by a somewhat disingenuous Souther, about a guy who, while his girlfriend is away in Mexico, has a fling with one of her friends. While on the surface a slight song about infidelity, it's also a critique of the darker underbelly of the affluent, permanent-sunshine world of California, set to a seductively charming melody, and topped of by Perkins' Mexican-style guitar picking, and Souther's fabulous vocal ad-libs at the close, almost worth another song in their own right.
(For other tracks from both SHF records check out on previous posts: https://www.unclestylus.com/single-post/2019/02/11/fallin-in-love-souther-hillman-furay-band and https://www.unclestylus.com/single-post/2017/04/04/prisoner-in-disguise-souther-hillman-furey-band
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