LOVELAND PASS — THE SINGLE
Two versions of this song here, studio and live. The band trundled over the Continential Divide a zillion times doing gigs at the Colorado ski resorts. Tooling along I-70 at speed, you then had no choice but exit to climb over Loveland Pass, often stuck behind a semi or worse someone stuck behind the band’s floored VW bus. In 1973, they opened a 1.6 mile long tunnel that took 5 years to bore under the 12,000 foot pass. On opening day March 8, the band went through the virgin tunnel that had the endearing quaintness of a Greyhound bus station bathroom, charming white sterile tile, cozy florescent lights, every bit void of the immense spanses and stunning Rocky Mountain eye candy on the Route 6 switchbacks over Loveland Pass. Ok sure you had to keep an eye the rearview mirror pretty often to make sure no truck had lost its brakes barreling down behind you on the miles of steep switchy descent. All this tunnel stuff did not sit well with the band’s songwriter Robert Anderson who penned an ode to this new fangled tunnel. A single was pressed on Shire Records and hit the airwaves getting lots of requests and spins on Denver country radio and jukeboxes along the front range. The song spawned a Denver TV special, some of which had the boys seen frolicking in the snow on the Pass summit. The 45 was produced by a rising talent, who’s gone on to greatness, Gerard McMahon.
Bill Hoke on drums. Now owns the Boulder Drum Shop, a killer drummer and cool guy.
Stanley Sheldon played bass, as Roger says “tight and syncopated and punchy. Even though I was the electric bass player for the band, I never played as well as this in my life! I did buy Stanley’s “P” bass a year later and wondered why it never sounded like him!”
Roger was the perfect vocal on the opening verse with writer Robert on the others, a hell of a blend!
LOVELAND PASS LIVE
Live version of LOVELAND PASS, recorded as best as the era could live. Robert sings all the verses on this one which was a total crowd pleaser especially amongst their hippy fanbase who just grooved on a protest song about such a an assault on nature. 13,000,000 cars now go thru the tunnel every year.
“See that colorful sunset there, it’s only chemicals in the air….”.
I’VE JUST SEEN A FACE
This is a live band cover of The Beatles song “I’ve Just Seen A Face” by Paul & John. Roger’s strong vocals are just perfect for this countrified version, which he brought to the band cause “I was a Beatle nut from day one.” Other bluegrass bands started doing this song too — it just works with bluegrass instrumentation! Roger writes: “I wish we could have picked up Earthquake’s standup bass and Mike Lepine’s drums better in the mix, but in 1974 there were little options to record live well. I am always amazed at Eric’s consistent even timing on 5 string banjo!”
OLD JOE CLARK and SALTY DOG — THE DOC WATSON JAM, Tulagi, Boulder
The band was often booked at Tulagi’s, a fun large spacious concert hall on “The Hill” adjacent to the University of Colorado in Boulder. The band finally got to open for Doc & Merle Watson and were warming up upstairs when Doc and son showed up and jumped in dropping guitar breaks and huge smiles as he got to know the band he’d later have open for him on a west coast tour. A cassette recorder was flipped on so this is all ambient recording but it’s just great behind-the-scenes stuff.
PARMA POLKA & BONUS
A smattering of stage fun here. Eric wrote this ditty about Parma, Ohio. A little send-up on polka music that the band would pull out if some joker yelled out POLKA, seeing the accordion strapped on Eric, which they do here. Now reveled up they chant MORE after Parma and since Jaime grew up in the Dakotas he pulled an old standard Beer Barrel Polka out of his quiver — Robert & Spencer singing different lyrics.
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