Hilariously earnest hippie folk rockers of the mushy stripe have a lot to answer for, as Village Voice scribe Robert Christgau noted in his cut-to-the-chase review of It’s a Beautiful Day’s eponymous 1969 debut: “This is on the charts. Get it off.” On the cover of It’s a Beautiful Day a woman in a flowing rustic dress stands atop a mountain peak. My guess is the album inside the cover inspired her to jump off.
San Francisco’s It’s a Beautiful Day are the band that gave us, for worse or for worser, “White Bird,” which you don’t hear very often because even your more sensitive poetic types know it crosses that fine line between the dawning of the Age of Aquarius and a bottomless lake of treacle. It’s the sort of song nuns in Catholic schools of the era played to their students in English class to prove they were “with it,” the same way they’d spin Sister Janet Mead’s groovy rock adaptation of “The Lord’s Prayer” some four years later. Lord only knows how many male parochial school students were inspired to drop out, join the Army, and risk both life and genitalia in Vietnam—anything to put as much distance as possible between themselves and “White Bird.”
It’s a Beautiful Day—who also tossed classical, jazz and “world music” elements into their musical mix—featured vocalist Pattie Santos and the husband-wife team of violinist David LaFlamme and keyboardist Linda LaFlamme, along with guitarist Hal Wagenet (the only member in the square ensemble with an ounce of freak in him), and some other folks I’m too lazy to mention. Although It’s a Beautiful Day were part of the San Francisco Summer of Love scene that produced the Grateful Dead and Jefferson Airplane, they had the bad luck of hiring as manager Matthew Katz, whose other clients, Jefferson Airplane and Moby Grape, were busy trying to scrape off the boot bottoms of their careers.
Katz promptly whisked the feckless band off to the oblivion of Seattle, where instead of giving them some much-needed live exposure, he locked them in the drafty attic of a house to write songs. It turned out to be a case of career hari-kari, and by the time the band had released its debut LP they’d hired a new manager, one Col. John Walker, U.S.M.C. (Ret.), perhaps in the hope that he would become the next Colonel Tom Parker. But such was not the case, leading one to wonder if Colonel Walker’s methods were as unsound as those of Colonel Walter E. Kurtz. Indeed, I’ve heard tell the band narrowly escaped being incinerated in an apocalyptic airstrike while holed up in the dark heart of the Cambodian jungle recording their sophomore album, although that’s probably just urban legend.
“White Bird” is a perfect example of the gentle “flowers in your hair” folk-rock school of hippiedom—the dual vocals of David LaFlamme and Santos and the song’s general vibe bring The Mamas & the Papas to mind, and you can also hear echoes of Jefferson Airplane at their most pastoral. LaFlamme’s violin and Linda LaFlamme’s organ dominate the proceedings, and while there’s no denying LaFlamme is a fine violinist, his vocals are about as hip as those of David Clayton-Thomas, which I suspect is one reason success eluded the band. It’s a Beautiful Day would have been better served by finding another male human being—I believe Charles Manson was available—to partner Santos up with, because LaFlamme may as well have been Mel Torme.
“Hot Summer Day” is a depressingly average MOR LSD-lite artifact, totally lacking in the sparks department, and LaFlamme—whose “square” vocals do the song no favors—waits until song’s end to bust out the old violin, leaving us with a vaguely pleasant but altogether forgettable bauble. “Wasted Union Blues” is the LP’s outlier and comes as a rude but welcome shock amidst the album’s take-zilch-chances shlock. The song has true freak cred and most likely earned itself the Ed Sander’s Fugs Seal of Approval, what with Wagenet’s fuzzed-out Fabulous Furry Freak Brothers’ guitar work, Santos’ Grace Slick ululations, LaFlamme’s dissonant violin scrabble, and the total spinning chaos that brings the song to its cataclysmic close. I’ll be damned if the band doesn’t out-weird the Airplane themselves, and the song is a bona fide lost treasure of the psychedelic era.
The same can’t be said for the risibly atrocious “Girl with No Eyes,” on which LaFlamme and Santos go Renaissance Faire to the accompaniment of Linda LaFlamme’s harpsichord. The lyrics are a kick—there’s this picture of a girl with no eyes on David’s wall, see, and along with wondering who she could be he lets on “she seems to be staring,” although how someone with no eyes can stare is beyond me. “Bombay Calling” is either lukewarm jazz fusion or bad world music or both, although despite its stereotypical “oriental” vibe (the vocals are unspeakable) it does include some lively guitar and violin work. Wish I could say the same for Linda’s organ.
“Bulgaria” is a DOA crawl and (while I’m certainly no expert) I doubt it has its roots in Bulgarian folk music or any kind of Bulgarian music for that matter. The vocals of LaFlamme and Santos are resonant, oh so earnest and every bit as annoying as bubblegum on the sole of your shoe, and while LaFlamme’s violin playing is nice, Santos’ accompanying operatic warble makes it impossible to appreciate it. It’s a serious drag of a song, and I’m surprised the good nation of Bulgaria didn’t lodge a complaint at the United Nations, or even declare war on the band. Slandering an entire country is a low blow, even for It’s a Beautiful Day.
Closer “Time Is” does, ironically enough, sound vaguely like an Eastern European folk song, crossed with a period cop show theme song. That said, if you can survive LaFlamme’s overly stagy vocals and his spouse’s organ paradiddle you will notice that as the song picks up speed the band once again descends into interesting chaos. Unfortunately a drum solo (and a long one at that) kills the momentum in its tracks, and by the time someone (the Colonel probably) finally gets around to terminating the drummer with extreme prejudice, the song descends again into welcome dissonance—it’s too little too late.
It’s a Beautiful Day were the biggest losers in the Summer of Love Battle of the Bands. They played a few huge festivals and released three subsequent studio albums (sans Linda LaFlamme), but fame (which can be fickle but isn’t stupid) gave them a pass, and nowadays they’ve been reduced for the most part to a trivia question (“Who recorded “White Bird?”). And it’s a trick question at that, because LaFlamme went on to record a solo version of the song in 1976. If anything it’s the cover of It’s a Beautiful Day that has achieved lasting fame—it occupies the number 24 spot on Rolling Stone’s list of 100 greatest album covers. One can only wonder why it didn’t launch a solo career. Could be because the woman on the cover jumped after all.
GRADED ON A CURVE:
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