Okay, between Dick Clark, Levon Helm and now Chris Ethridge, I'm getting a little tired of hearing news of deaths in the music community. But like Frank would tell you..."That's Life".
Former Flying Burrito Brothers bassist Chris Ethridge passed into eternity yesterday (April 23) of unknown circumstances. Chris was the solid bottom end sound of the Cosmic American Music pioneers (a term fellow FBB Gram Parsons preferred over "Country Rock") and, along with the late Michael Clark, made up a powerful rhythm section that would set a template later used by acts like The Eagles, Poco and many others of that ilk.
Ethridge was a member of the Brothers for only one album during their salad days, the unbelievable The Gilded Palace of Sin, but that was more than enough to leave a legacy. The video below is all the evidence you need that that statement isn't hyperbolic (the video focuses, naturally, on Parsons but I would suggest listening rather than watching). Ethridge co-wrote this masterpiece with Gram and this style of music would never be the same.
Ethridge left FBB before the second album, Burrito Deluxe, was recorded but made it back around to the band in 1975 to record Flying Again. Between those tenures and after, Chris stuck mostly to session work. His resume includes GP, Gram Parsons solo debut, two of Willie Nelson's best albums, Stardust and Honeysuckle Rose, also work with Ry Cooder, Linda Ronstadt, Graham Nash & David Crosby and one of my all-time favorites, White Light by former Byrd, Gene Clark.
Thank you for your service Chris, hopefully Gram was waiting in the ether to greet you.
Rock and Roll is rife with tragic stories of unrealized fullness of potential, from Eddie Cochran to Amy Winehouse. One story that has been lost to the ages is that of a band from Portland, Oregon, The Exploding Hearts.
Coming together in 2001, the band quickly hit the West Coast radar with their mix of influences stemming from 70's New Wave, power pop and British punk. By April of 2003, their debut album, Guitar Romantic, was ready to go and released. Then came July 20, 2003.
On their way back from a gig in San Francisco, bassist Matt Fitzgerald fell asleep behind the wheel, losing control of the van. Vocalist/guitarist Adam Cox and drummer Jeremy Gage were ejected from the vehicle and died at the scene. They were 23 and 21, respectively. Fitzgerald later died at the hospital, he was 20. Guitarist Terry Six survived, but the band and its future did not.
What was left behind was one album of punk power pop that still stands up, nearly 10 years later. I found this album in 2004 and was absolutely heartbroken to find that this band had come and gone, basically before it got started. I'll let the video speak for itself rather than trying to heap superlatives on something I feel is THE lost gem of the first decade of this century.
This last week, the rock/pop music family lost another member, one whose influence might not have been obvious but those who felt it would never shy away from admitting to it. If you're reading this and think "oh, he's talking about Davy Jones"...you'd be mistaken (as sad as his passing is). I'm talking about guitarist Ronnie Montrose.
Ronnie Montrose was another in a long line of rock heroes whose name was not typically on the tongue of casual music fans but you probably couldn't sit through a movie like Dazed and Confused or listen to a couple hours of classic rock radio and not hear his work or his legacy. Ronnie's first appearance was on the 1971 Van Morrison record Tupelo Honey. Shortly thereafter he hooked up with the Edgar Winter Group and played on their album They Only Come Out at Night, and that record only had their two biggest hits, 'Frankenstein' and 'Free Ride'.
After that he put his own group together, using a then unknown Sammy Hagar on vocals, blessing it with his own name and putting the band Montrose out into the world. Their debut album (self-titled) from 1973 is a pre-metal classic. Proof of its decades-long reach can be heard in one of the biggest albums from the late '80's glam/hair/metal bubble, Dr. Feelgood by Motley Crue. Listen to the intro of Montrose's 'Bad Motor Scooter', then listen to one of Motley's biggest hits 'Kickstart My Heart' and tell me it was just a coincidence.
See what I mean? And it's no accident that Eddie Van Halen ended up using Montrose producer Ted Templeman to produce nearly everything his band put out (Ted himself having previous knowledge of Ronnie due to producing Tupelo Honey). Not to mention that Eddie brought in Sammy to sing for VH (presumably because he couldn't use Ray Davies of the Kinks*, another major influence band-wise on young Eddie), a shrewd move considering Eddie used the Montrose template to forge Van Halen, whose influence knows no bounds. A second Montrose record featuring Sammy, Paper Money, followed in 1974 but it lacked the metal sound and intense drive of the debut and very quickly Sammy was off to pursue his own solo career, effectively ending one of the most underrated vocalist/guitarist duos in the decade that reveled in that dynamic. Montrose, the band, released 3 more records over the next 13 years but commercial success was not to be. Ronnie himself would go on to form Gamma and also release various solo efforts but nothing had the lasting impact of that inital Ronnie/Sammy collaboration.
In his final years, Ronnie seemed content to do session work and make sporadic appearances with solo Sammy, twice putting together the original Montrose line-up to guest at Sammy shows. He also toured with a cobbled together reformation of Montrose but no recorded material came to light. In 2009 Ronnie believed he had successfully battled prostate cancer but the disease reared its ugly head one last time and claimed the life of a man whose unrealized brilliance will be felt for a long time to come and should be more widely celebrated. He was 64 years old.
*- I have considered shaping a post discussing the, in my opinion, criminal underrating of The Kinks. As great as that band is and in such high regard they are held, I still feel they don't get their due and are lost in the wake of the British Big 4, The Beatles, Led Zeppelin, The Who and The Rolling Stones. However, such a post is very daunting and I'm not ready yet. Just go listen to Lola Versus Powerman and the Moneygoround, Part One and you'll see what I get so excited about.
