Notes: From the Jefferson Airplane to Hot Tuna, solo outings and guitar retreats Jorma continues to produce his own style of blues, folk, rock and gospel. While many of his contemporaries passed on mortally or musically he and his various sidemen are still spreading the word. Whether it's an original song or one of the many he plays by Rev. Gary Davis (among others), Jorma's voice and guitar stand out as instantly identifiable as him alone. This early album is close in sound to the beginnings of acoustic Hot Tuna and can be readily recommended to one an all as a nice piece of Jorma's past. I'm not real sure what the cover is depicting, but let's just say it's an interesting piece of work and leave it at that. The original is supposedly on display at a coffee shop in Athens, Ohio called Donkey's. Here's a bit of info provided by
Pete Raine: Back in the folk music days (early 60s) in San
Francisco, when Jorma would back a young Janis Joplin on guitar
in coffeehouse gigs, Tom Hobson was a fellow folk musician who
had both a house available to congregate in, and a wife who made
good coffee, so many musicians would inevitably wind up at the
Hobsons' house for jam sessions. Jorma said that Hobson was a
fairly prolific writer but had never recorded any of his material,
so when this album project came about (around the time of Jorma
and Jack permanently leaving the Airplane), Tom was invited to
do some songs with him. Jorma describes Hobson as being "thin
as a rail", a chain smoker, and having "about one lung".
He left us by way of a brain aneurism. An old friend of Tom's
named Eric Van der Wyk (banjo player for Ragged But Right) has
put up a site in honor of Tom: http://tomhobson.com |
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