interviews

Heartaches and Raindrops: Margo Guryan’s “Think of Rain”

/ Fiona McQuarrie / Leave a comment

(originally appeared in Shindig! issue #64)

‘Think of Rain’ by Margo Guryan is one of those songs that, upon hearing it, you think “Why on earth wasn’t this a massive hit?” It’s charming, it’s catchy, it’s exquisitely produced and arranged, and Guryan’s dreamy vocals perfectly match its mood of whimsical romance. But even though it was covered several times in the mid-‘60s, ‘Think of Rain’ remained largely overlooked for many years.  Thankfully, subsequent re-releases of Guryan’s work have resulted in this sunshine-pop gem getting the appreciation it deserves. Continue reading →

Fred Neil: Lost Child in a World of Sorrow

/ Fiona McQuarrie / Leave a comment

(originally appeared in Shindig! issue #63)

Fred Neil’s ‘The Dolphins’ grabs the listener from its first notes, just because it sounds so very different. The echoing acoustic and electric guitars shimmer like light reflecting off rolling ocean waves, and Neil’s dynamic, resonant baritone voice ebbs and flows like the tide.  ‘The Dolphins’ doesn’t sound like the other songs on the same album; it doesn’t even sound like what other artists were doing in the same era. More than one commentator has described ‘The Dolphins’ as a perfect song, or something very close to it.

With that level of critical esteem, it’s more than surprising that Neil’s music, so well-regarded in its time, is now not widely known. That might be because his recording career was relatively short. He made only five albums between ’65 and ‘71, and then essentially walked away from the music industry; he may be most familiar to contemporary audiences as the writer of Harry Nilsson’s ’69 hit ‘Everybody’s Talkin’’. Neil also kept a deliberately low profile during and after his musical career, right up until he passed away in 2001. He was generous, he was kind to his acquaintances, he was humble, but he was also very private. Ric O’Barry, his friend for nearly 40 years, says, “I probably knew him better than anybody, and he was still a mystery to me. I didn’t know much about him and he didn’t talk much.”

But those who had the privilege of being his friend agree that ‘The Dolphins’ may be the song that is Fred Neil. Peter Childs, who played guitar on the song, describes ‘The Dolphins’ as “one of the purest expressions of who he really was.” O’Barry says, “It’s a beautiful song, it’s from the heart, and if you really want to know who Fred was, you just have to listen to his songs.”

Neil’s life and musical career Continue reading →

Things May Change: Janis Ian’s ‘Society’s Child’

/ Fiona McQuarrie / Leave a comment

(originally appeared in Shindig! issue #58)

A listener in 2016 discovering Janis Ian’s ‘67 hit ‘Society’s Child’ might well hear it as the musical equivalent of a fly in amber: a well-preserved relic from a distant time when interracial relationships were shocking or even illegal. Some might argue that racial discrimination has diminished since then; after all, a black man is the president of the United States, and a Muslim son of Pakistani immigrants is the Mayor of London. But the racial conflicts that have erupted in the US and elsewhere over the past five decades – the Watts riots, the Rodney King trial, the shootings that fueled the Black Lives Matter movement – show that the prejudice Ian portrayed in ’67 is still very much with us.

Ian was a 14-year-old high school student when she wrote ‘Society’s Child’. Because of the song’s first-person perspective, and because of her age, many assumed that ‘Society’s Child’ was based on events in her own life. But Ian explains Continue reading →