THE POET AND HIS PRINCESS

 

  Poet Song, our second Vanguard album, was written for Tina as a showcase for her intimate and warm voice. Sam suggested that I read some of my poems and double-track guitar behind them. We recorded it at Sierra Sound in Berkeley where Serpent Power was recorded. Some string players from the Oakland Philharmonic -- including violist Tom Heimberg, an old Fairfax High School buddy-- were assembled at the studio by arranger Ed Bogas. I wanted to write songs almost exclusively for Tina, since I'd dominated our first album. The songs and orchestration were to sound more like art song, the antithesis of what Serpent Power was doing in the clubs.

Vanguard seemed pleased and held an option for us to do a third album. A mutual friend Chris Brooks introduced us to Vic Briggs who had been the lead guitarist with The Animals. Vic was now producing records for Capitol and liked Poet Song tremendously but thought he could produce a better album. He asked us to make a demo-tape for him to pitch to his bosses at Capitol. 

I wrote some more songs and Tina and I put together a tape using a clunky Sony tape recorder. (We managed to double-track vocal harmonies and guitar textures but, being technologically challenged, didn't realize they had to be mixed, which was moot since we didn't have the equipment.) Nevertheless, Capitol liked what their new British producer played and they gave the green light. We left Vanguard amicably and signed with Capitol.

The instrumental tracks were cut at the Capitol Recording Studios in Hollywood. Our studio was down corridor from a big studio where Sinatra was in the process of cutting an album. Vic selected most of the musicians for the date including John Guerin on drums, Lyle Ritz on bass,  David Lindley played violin, Michael Rubini, piano. I hired bluegrass mandolinist Scott Hambly.

The string section was added at another time. (During a session break, some of the A-List Hollywood studio musicians talked about their various investments, airplanes, real estate holdings, while Scott and I reminisced about his bluegrass band, The Ridge Runners, featuring Greg Lasser on the 5-string, who was part of my band, The Snopes County Camp Followers, with Tina, Joe Edmiston on gutbucket bass.)

Our vocal tracks were recorded in Wally Heider's San Francisco studio which, at the time, was state-of-the-art and was like entering onto a set in 2001: A Space Odyssey. Our engineer had just finished a long haul working on a Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young album. We felt like we were in the big time; super-stardom was just around the corner, glimmering like Las Vegas at night.

Cover photos were taken and liner notes were written by poet Kenneth Rexroth, a founding father of the San Francisco Renaissance and Beat movement. In a couple of weeks we received a tape of the mixed-down album and played it for anybody who stumbled into our home. Then there was an odd silence. Then there was a long-distance call from Vic who broke the news. He and four or five other producers who Capitol management had hired had been let go. Why? A corporate turn-over: a new management team was brought in and canceled all of the previous management's projects. Vic was out of a job; David and Tina would not become mega-stars but they did have a very expensive home tape. The songs you're about to listen to.
by David Meltzer

 

     Tina & David Meltzer - Poet Song

01     I'm The Early Morning Racer (Poem)     1:39    
02    I'll Forget You     3:44    
03      The Bath (Poem)     0:33    
04      I'm A Lover     2:51    
05     Ravel Blues     4:38    
06     The Blackest Rose (Poem)     0:55    
07      It Is For You     1:50    
08      Lullaby     2:54    
09     I'm So Willing     4:15    
10     Lamentation For Hank Williams (Poem)     1:09    
11      Hymn To Love     3:18    
12      Confessin' (Poem)     2:27    
13      Pure White Place     4:34    
14     Poem For My Wife (Poem)     1:01    
15     For Tina     2:28

  

Tina & David Meltzer Green Morning

1. Heavenly City - 3:34
2. Let The Door Stay Open - 3:30
3. Hungry - 4:38
4. Luna Tune #1 - 0:43
5. Green Morning - 3:38
6. Shara - 1:40
7. Keep On Lovin' - 3:16
8. The Garden - 4:37
9. Child Ballad - 4:01
10.Luna Tune #2 - 0:53
11.The Angel - 2:45
12.Let The Light In - 1:45
13.Do You Think Your God - 5:17
14.It's Simple - 0:47
Words and Music by David Meltzer

Musicians
*Tina Meltzer - Vocals
*David Meltzer - Guitar Vocals, Harmonica
*John Guerin - Drums
*Lyle Ritz - Bass
*David Lindley - Violin
*Michael Rubini - Piano
*Scott Hambly - Mandolin

ROCK POETS

 Fronted by San Franciscan poet David Meltzer, the Serpent Power was a sunshiny folk-rock group, whose songs were musical translations of Meltzer's poetry. They were first noticed by Ed Denton, manager of Country Joe and the Fish, when he saw them perform at their first-ever gig, a benefit for the Telegraph Neighborhood Center. This was in November of 1966 — Denton recommended them to Vanguard Records (Country Joe's label) and by 1967 the band was signed and had released their first and only album.The Serpent Power was formed by Meltzer and his wife Tina (who sang both lead and harmony vocals), and also included Denny Ellis and David Stenson on lead guitar and bass, respectively, both of whom had gotten their start with San Francisco folksters the Grass Roots. The band became a full rock outfit with the inclusion of John Payne on organ and Clark Coolidge on drums. The album, also entitled The Serpent Power, received a somewhat limited pressing and, despite featuring some excellent examples of folk-rock, the band never got that big, known mostly within the San Francisco area. The album's last track was a raga-rock epic which included electric banjo player JP Pickens, who stayed on as a permanent member as the band entered its second incarnation.Ellis, Stenson, and Payne left shortly after The Serpent Power was recorded, replaced by Bob Cuff (who'd come over from folk-pop band the Mystery Trend), on lead guitar and Jim Moscoso on bass. Although they continued reaching in ever-more exploratory directions, the band didn't record another album, and disbanded in 1968. David and Tina Meltzer went on to record another album, Poet's Song, under their own names.

 1969: After Serpent Power, our first LP for Vanguard,  Benny Ellis (rhythm guitar) & David  Stenson (bass) quit the band.  They'd been w/ The Grass Roots & did the Vanguard recording session as a favor to mutual friend Chris Brooks. Clark Coolidge & I were the sole survivors since Tina, the lead singer, quit after hearing the first album & then performing at The Fillmore.
We had a contract for a second album & had a year to put together a new band & get our shit together.  Working out of a cave-like basement in a big office building in San Francisco — w/ mounds of dirt in various uneven slopes & ridges — Clark I began auditioning musicians for the new band.
Mostly we spent hours improvising.  We hired Bob Cuff, rhythm guitarist, who was a member of The Mystery Trend, one of the first art school art bands in SF, & Jim Moscoso, bass.  Jim was the younger brother of our friend Victor Moscoso, an artist & one of the vanguard poster & underground comic artists of the 60’s. We also re-enlisted banjoist J.P. Pickens to join in whenever he had the time. (J.P. & I had been experimenting at the Coffee Gallery of our version of free folk-music, sometimes joined on acoustic guitar by Jim Gurley (who became lead guitar for Big Brother.)
This newly formed group was invited by John Rockwell (now a NY Times cultural critic) to perform on his weekly show on KPFA-FM in Berkeley. Cuff, Coolidge, Moscoso, Meltzer, & Pickens walked into KPFA & were greeted by Daniel Moore (visionary poet, leader of The Floating Lotus Opera Company, & now Sufi teacher & storyteller in the East coast.)  He introduced us to his friend Christian who had an alto saxophone which he was in the first stages of learning how to play. They wanted to sit in. Daniel was/is one of the greatest intuitive musi­cians I've run into.  He brought his shenei (Chinese oboe) & a bunch of bells & conch shells into the studio.  It was all decidedly spontaneous & in the moment since none of us had really played together.  (Daniel & Christian were to become regular members of the band when we worked weekend gigs in North Beach clubs; Pickens wd sit in whenever he cd, developing new sounds from his amplified banjo.)
This hunk of that first confrontation is one of 2 reel-to-reel tapes recorded at KPFA that night.  I gave the other half to Jim Moscoso & suspect it's lost in Borgesville.



                                     David Meltzer

                                     Oakland, CA

                                     Autumn, 2006

  

1st LP Tracks:

01. Don't You Listen to Her 2:20
02. Gently, Gently 2:36
03. Open House 3:31
04. Flying Away 4:26
05. Nobody Blues 3:50
06. Up and Down 3:37
07. Sky Baby 2:32
08. Forget 3:34
09. Dope Again :47
10. Endless Tunnel 13:14

2nd LP tracks:

11. This Side 10:37

12. The Other Side 24:41