CHRIS DARROW
''CHRIS DARROW''
1973
39:21
1 Albuquerque Rainbow 3:07
2 Take Good Care of Yourself 3:07
3 Don't Let Your Deal Go Down (Traditional) 3:47
4 Devil's Dream (Traditional) 1:30
5 We Don't Talk of Lovin' Anymore 4:04
6 We're Living on $15 a Week 1:46
7 Whipping Boy 3:49
8 To Which Cross Do I Cling 4:37
9 Hong Kong Blues (Hoagy Carmichael) 2:30
10 A Good Woman's Love (Cy Coben) 3:17
11 Faded Love 3:22
12 That's What It's Like to Be Alone 4:20
Tracks By Chris Darrow, Except 3, 4, 9, 10
Andrew Van Der Beek/Horn
Sonny Binns/Keyboards
Steve Cahill/Autoharp, Guitar, Vocals
Theresa Caudle/Wind
Clive Chaman/Bass
Dolly Collins/Keyboards
Earl Dann/Guitar
Chris Darrow/Banjo, Guitar, Mandolin, Vocals
Alan Lumsden/Sax
Dave Mattacks/Drums
Dave Pegg/Bass Guitar
Roger Pope/Drums
Caleb Quaye/Guitar, Piano
Joseph Skeaping/Rebab
Rod Skeaping/Viola
Dan Smith/Drums
Alan Stivell/Flute, Harp
Trevor White/Bass Guitar
REVIEW/AMG
by William Ruhlmann
As a former member of Kaleidoscope, the Nitty Gritty Dirt Band, and the Corvettes, Chris Darrow is a veteran of the Southern California psychedelic country-rock scene, and his self-titled solo album is an eclectic grab-bag of styles. Lead-off track "Albuquerque Rainbow," with its twinned electric guitar line, sounds like one of the softer efforts of the Allman Brothers Band, while "Take Good Care of Yourself" applies a reggae rhythm to a country tune. Elsewhere, Darrow turns to less produced and more esoteric fare, including the double-mandolin instrumental "Devil's Dream" and the old-timey country number "We're Living on $15 a Week." "Hong Kong Blues" is the old Hoagy Carmichael song, but "Faded Love" is an original in which the mandolin, accompanied by a flute, approximates the sound of a koto for a Japanese effect, and it all concludes with "That's What It's Like to Be Alone," given a Renaissance chamber music arrangement complete with harpsichord and cello. Thus, Chris Darrow boasts a little bit of everything in its musical choices, although at its center is a singer and player with a stronger sense of style than substance, which may explain why he's tended to be a group member rather than a frontman until now.
OFFICIAL BIOGRAPHY
Long before recording as a solo artist in the 1970s, multi-instrumentalist Chris Darrow was a well-known musician and trusted sideman in Los Angeles’ tightly knit music scene. In 2009, Los Feliz CA-based Everloving Records is honored to reissue two classic Chris Darrow solo albums, 1973’s Chris Darrow and 1974’s Under My Own Disguise. Both titles were originally released via the United Artists label.
Proficient on guitar, bass, fiddle, violin, banjo, Dobro, lap steel and mandolin, Chris Darrow never actively sought employment as a musician, but the work always managed to find him. Even if you have never heard his name before, Darrow’s fingerprints remain in conspicuous corners of the public consciousness. His early career was spent playing in bluegrass combo The Dry City Scat Band with David Lindley, and fronting electric rock group The Floggs. With Lindley, he co-founded revered psych outfit Kaleidoscope -- hailed by Jimmy Page as his “favorite band of all time.” A stint with the Nitty Gritty Dirt Band led to the formation of The Corvettes, which later resulted in long-term touring relationships with Linda Ronstadt and John Stewart. He contributed to pivotal session gigs with Leonard Cohen, James Taylor and Hoyt Axton and crossed paths with Sly Stone, Sonny and Cher, Gram Parsons, Gene Vincent, Jim Morrison, Frank Zappa and even Walt Disney and Hugh Hefner.
Raised in the Los Angeles suburb of Claremont, CA (located 30 miles east of Downtown L.A.) Chris Darrow, came of age with the sounds of Ritchie Valens and the Everly Brothers on the radio. He was encouraged to explore his musical curiosities at a small, family-run instrument shop called The Claremont Folk Music Center, where he purchased his first guitar at age 13. “The Folk Music Center was a godsend to a kid like me who wanted to play guitar and learn about folk music,” marvels Darrow, who at age 64, still resides in Claremont. “You could take an instrument home and play it while you were paying it off.” (Ben Harper, grandson of shop owners Charles and Dot Chase, would later record a cover of Darrow’s “Whipping Boy” as the lead single for his major label debut.) At Pitzer College, Chris spent two years assisting respected folklorist Guy Carawan, who was teaching American Folk Life Studies. Carawan is responsible for introducing the world to iconic protest anthem “We Shall Overcome.”
With Kaleidoscope, Chris Darrow and bandmates David Lindley, Solomon Feldthouse and Max Buda, pioneered an adventurous blend of Middle Eastern, country, folk, blues and psychedelia that introduced Western ears to the intriguing instrumentation of the Turkish oud and caz. The genre-defying sound of Kaleidoscope’s 1967 debut Side Trips, recorded on some of the first eight-track recording machines in America, anticipated the World Beat movement by decades. The eclectic nature of their music allowed them the opportunity to perform with a wide spectrum of artists including Jimi Hendrix, The Doors, Taj Mahal, The Byrds, Ike and Tina Turner, Bo Diddley, Steppenwolf, The Grateful Dead, The Impressions and Procul Harum. Kaleidoscope even gigged outside of the Monterey Pop Festival, playing to the Hells Angels.
Citing creative differences, Chris Darrow quit Kaleidoscope shortly after completion of the band’s sophomore effort Beacon From Mars. Soon after his departure, he got a call from his former bandmates who were in a bind. Stuart Brottman, the musician set to take over Darrow’s duties in Kaleidoscope, was not yet available for their December 1967 residency in New York City. They asked Chris to come with them.
Booked for a week of gigs at Steve Paul’s chic midtown Manhattan club The Scene, Kaleidoscope had their gear stolen almost as soon as they arrived in town. With loaner gear borrowed from fellow West Coaster Frank Zappa who was in town recording with The Mothers of Invention. The band opened for Nico (whom Darrow had previously met in L.A.), who was accompanied only by her Hammond B3 organ. “There were very few West Coast groups that had played in the East yet, and we ‘long haired hippies’ were the antithesis of the New York vibe at the time,” says Darrow while reflecting on that particularly pivotal night. “Warhol and his minions showed up, The Cyrcle was there, the Chambers Brothers, Leonard Cohen and a pre-Blood Sweat and Tears David Clayton-Thomas were all hanging out.” After Kaleidoscope’s set, Cohen approached the band about playing on his forthcoming album. They agreed to the gig and he next day Darrow, Lindley and Buda sat in Cohen’s apartment learning to play compositions that would become debut masterwork Songs of Leonard Cohen. “Boy you guys really saved me when I did my first album in New York,” says Leonard Cohen when he meets Chris Darrow face to face for the first time in 34 years. Cohen has come down the hill from nearby Mt. Baldy Zen Retreat and the two are sitting in Yianni’s Greek Café in Darrow’s hometown of Claremont CA. Lending his bass playing skills to those sessions, Darrow appears on album tracks “So Long Marianne” and “Teachers.” The Kaleidoscope/Cohen collaborations that didn’t make Songs’ final cut were later resurrected for use in Robert Altman’s film McCabe and Mrs. Miller, including alternate versions of “Sisters of Mercy” and “The Stranger Song.”
After seeing them perform in New York City, Chris Darrow took up the Nitty Gritty Dirt Band’s offer to join forces, and Chris returned to Los Angeles as an official member of the group. Chris recorded two albums with the Dirt Band including Rare Junk, and appeared in the Clint Eastwood musical Paint Your Wagon. In 1969, Darrow and the Dirt Band’s Jeff Hanna broke off and started their own group called The Corvettes, releasing two singles for the Dot label, produced by Mike Nesmith. At the same time Linda Ronstadt, a regular at the Ash Grove and Troubadour, was in immediate need of a backing band. The hard driving country sound of The Corvettes was a perfect match for the young singer’s voice. While backing Ronstadt, they asked to keep their own identity and performed a song or two per set at The Corvettes. Hanna eventually returned to his full time gig in the Dirt Band, and was replaced by (future Eagle) Bernie Leadon.
While playing with Ronstadt in New York, Chris Darrow spotted Peter Asher checking into the band’s hotel. It was 1969 and Asher was fresh from his gig at Apple Records (where he had given a young James Taylor his first record deal), about to take on the position as Director of A&R for MGM Records. In addition to performing in Ronstadt’s band, Darrow had also done occasional work as her road manager. Seizing the opportunity in front of him, Darrow extended an invite to Asher to come see their show at The Bitter End. Asher would go on to produce hit records for Linda Ronstadt for the next twenty years. Asher had also extended the offer to produce The Corvettes for MGM, but by the end of the band’s stay in New York, Bernie Leadon had been recruited into the Flying Burrito Brothers and John Ware and John London became part of Mike Nesmith’s First National Band. Though an MGM deal for the Corvettes never transpired, Asher later called on Darrow to provide fiddle and violin on James Taylor’s wildly popular second album Sweet Baby James.
Chris soon signed to Fantasy Records as a solo artist and released his first LP Artist Proof in 1972. He moved over to the United Artists label for his next two releases, Chris Darrow and Under My Own Disguise. Recorded in England and California with members of Fairport Convention, arranger and harpsichordist Dolly Collins, pedal steel genius B.J. Cole (Scott Walker, Elton John) and a host of others, these two albums pair Darrow’s raw California twang and taste for experimentation with the crisp English production of the emerging UK folk-rock scene. “I chose to go to England to record my second solo album Chris Darrow. I had recorded a real American album with Artist Proof. To move to the next rung, I felt that it was necessary to expand and search out new territories. In the early seventies there was a movement around the world to return to the roots. Groups like Fairport Convention and Steeleye Span were exploring the English tradition, and there were movements in France and Ireland pushing for the return of indigenous traditions. These people were like minds to me and I sought to meld the various traditions on a pan-world level.”
While these records have remained largely obscure, more than 35 years later, the music sounds incredibly modern. Chris Darrow was ahead of the mark on many fronts, and with these reissued titles the rest of the world may finally catch up to him.
BIOGRAPHY/AMG
by Tom Kealey
Chris Darrow was born on July 30, 1944, in Sioux Falls, South Dakota, to a military dad who soon afterward moved his family to Southern California, where Darrow still makes his home. He began learning to play anything he could get his hands on that had strings, and over the course of the next 30-plus years, became one of the most sought-after multi-instrumentalists in professional music. Shortly after high school graduation, Darrow put together a bluegrass band called the Dry City Scat Band with David Lindley, Steve Cahill, Richard Greene, and Pete Madlem. Within a couple of years, the Scat Band would become one of the hottest bluegrass ensembles in Southern California. During the summer of 1964, the Scat Band got a gig at Disneyland, which was steady work, and Darrow was able to support his new bride. During this period, signs were starting to appear indicating imminent changes in the hearts of some of the purest bluegrass musicians. Bandmate Richard Greene introduced Darrow to a friend of his who played in the Chad Mitchell Trio and who had just returned from England raving about the British music scene. Darrow had never before seen anyone with Beatle boots and long hair. The gentleman happened to be future Byrds founder Roger McGuinn. Later that summer, the Scat Band was replaced by the Scottsville Squirrel Barkers and mandolinist Chris Hillman, a hardcore bluegrass purist who quietly and sheepishly said to Darrow, "I joined a rock & roll band. I need the money. They're called the Byrds."
In the latter part of the '60s, Darrow had his first major breakthrough by putting a band together, called Kaleidoscope, with David Lindley, Solomon Feldthouse, and Max Buda. American folk, Middle Eastern, country & western, and blues, which would have seemed an unlikely combination of musical flavors, proved to mix very well and ultimately became successful. Led Zeppelin's Jimmy Page was quoted as saying that, "Kaleidoscope was his favorite band of all time." Kaleidoscope went on to release several albums in the late '60s with no hit singles, but with a large cult following that is still growing.
In late 1967, Darrow was asked to join the Nitty Gritty Dirt Band as a fiddle player/singer replacing predecessors Jackson Browne, who left to embark upon a solo career, and Bruce Kunkel, who left the band because of philosophical differences. As it turned out, the Dirt Band abruptly adopted a more electric sound anyway, which is what Kunkel had been campaigning for, but was resigned to defeat. In the meantime, Darrow's presence gave the Nitty Gritty Dirt Band some glory by virtue of their performance in the smash musical comedy flick Paint Your Wagon. The Dirt Band's short-lived and waning success would soon cause a breakup, but it would later reorganize with different personnel. Darrow, on the other hand, who has more sides to him than a mirror ball, hung out his shingle attracting a great number of new opportunities.
One of these opportunities was in the form of an intermittent working relationship with Linda Ronstadt that came as the result of an introduction by a primate. Former Monkee Michael Nesmith produced a couple of singles for a band called the Corvettes, founded by Darrow and former Dirt Band mate Jeff Hanna. The Corvettes would soon become Ronstadt's backup band. She had heard about them through Nesmith, who was the writer of her hit song "Different Drum." Darrow stayed with Ronstadt's band off and on for a number of years, witnessing a personnel change whereby Bernie Leadon came in to replace Hanna, who had decided to make his exit and re-form the Dirt Band.
Darrow was offered a recording contract by United Artists Records in 1972. He recorded the albums Chris Darrow, followed up by Under My Own Disguise the following year. "Whipping Boy," from the former, received critical acclaim and is still viewed as an attractive "cover" prospect. Over the years, he has continued to be called upon by other artists who wanted his multifaceted musical influence on their albums. Artists such as James Taylor, Sonny & Cher, Gene Vincent, Helen Reddy, and John Fahey are only a few examples.
In the mid-'90s, Darrow started recording for the Taxim label of Germany. In 2000, the label released a two-CD set, called Coyote: Straight from the Heart. It includes a 40-minute instrumental suite and 20 original songs. Taxim also released Fretless, Southern California Drive, Los Chumps with Max Buda, and Mojave, a Darrow-produced album featuring members of Emmylou Harris's band, Lone Justice, and the Byrds. In early 2001, BGO Records in England released Darrow's second and third albums, Chris Darrow and Under My Own Disguise, as a two-for-one package.
All of Kaleidoscope's early records have been re-released on Demon Records in England and Sony/Legacy in the U.S. Darrow's fabulous slide guitar work is featured on a compilation album called Everybody Slides, Vol. 2. The album features cuts by such slide greats as Lowell George, John Hammond, David Lindley, and Rory Block. It is on Sky Ranch Records in France with Virgin distribution, as well as Rykodisc in the United States. Darrow also appears on two Takoma Records compilations, Takoma Slide and Takoma Eclectic Sampler, Vol. 2.
Other sides of this mirror ball (metaphorically speaking) lay in business and photography. Darrow planned to publish a book containing photographs he has taken over the last few decades, many of which appear on album covers. By his own admission, he said he decided to take his photojournalism to a professional level after he learned that the man with whom his wife ran off was a photographer.
In retrospect, during the late '60s and through the '70s, there seemed to be a delicate balance of relationships that would influence the evolution of country rock music (as it would come to be known) for the remainder of the 20th century and beyond. Chris Darrow was right in the middle of all of this and played an integral part of the formation and ultimate success of more than just a handful of his contemporaries. In 2013, his 1972 self-titled debut was re-released by Drag City with great fanfare; the original album was appended with a handful of bonus tracks.
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''CHRIS DARROW''
1973
39:21
1 Albuquerque Rainbow 3:07
2 Take Good Care of Yourself 3:07
3 Don't Let Your Deal Go Down (Traditional) 3:47
4 Devil's Dream (Traditional) 1:30
5 We Don't Talk of Lovin' Anymore 4:04
6 We're Living on $15 a Week 1:46
7 Whipping Boy 3:49
8 To Which Cross Do I Cling 4:37
9 Hong Kong Blues (Hoagy Carmichael) 2:30
10 A Good Woman's Love (Cy Coben) 3:17
11 Faded Love 3:22
12 That's What It's Like to Be Alone 4:20
Tracks By Chris Darrow, Except 3, 4, 9, 10
Andrew Van Der Beek/Horn
Sonny Binns/Keyboards
Steve Cahill/Autoharp, Guitar, Vocals
Theresa Caudle/Wind
Clive Chaman/Bass
Dolly Collins/Keyboards
Earl Dann/Guitar
Chris Darrow/Banjo, Guitar, Mandolin, Vocals
Alan Lumsden/Sax
Dave Mattacks/Drums
Dave Pegg/Bass Guitar
Roger Pope/Drums
Caleb Quaye/Guitar, Piano
Joseph Skeaping/Rebab
Rod Skeaping/Viola
Dan Smith/Drums
Alan Stivell/Flute, Harp
Trevor White/Bass Guitar
REVIEW/AMG
by William Ruhlmann
As a former member of Kaleidoscope, the Nitty Gritty Dirt Band, and the Corvettes, Chris Darrow is a veteran of the Southern California psychedelic country-rock scene, and his self-titled solo album is an eclectic grab-bag of styles. Lead-off track "Albuquerque Rainbow," with its twinned electric guitar line, sounds like one of the softer efforts of the Allman Brothers Band, while "Take Good Care of Yourself" applies a reggae rhythm to a country tune. Elsewhere, Darrow turns to less produced and more esoteric fare, including the double-mandolin instrumental "Devil's Dream" and the old-timey country number "We're Living on $15 a Week." "Hong Kong Blues" is the old Hoagy Carmichael song, but "Faded Love" is an original in which the mandolin, accompanied by a flute, approximates the sound of a koto for a Japanese effect, and it all concludes with "That's What It's Like to Be Alone," given a Renaissance chamber music arrangement complete with harpsichord and cello. Thus, Chris Darrow boasts a little bit of everything in its musical choices, although at its center is a singer and player with a stronger sense of style than substance, which may explain why he's tended to be a group member rather than a frontman until now.
OFFICIAL BIOGRAPHY
Long before recording as a solo artist in the 1970s, multi-instrumentalist Chris Darrow was a well-known musician and trusted sideman in Los Angeles’ tightly knit music scene. In 2009, Los Feliz CA-based Everloving Records is honored to reissue two classic Chris Darrow solo albums, 1973’s Chris Darrow and 1974’s Under My Own Disguise. Both titles were originally released via the United Artists label.
Proficient on guitar, bass, fiddle, violin, banjo, Dobro, lap steel and mandolin, Chris Darrow never actively sought employment as a musician, but the work always managed to find him. Even if you have never heard his name before, Darrow’s fingerprints remain in conspicuous corners of the public consciousness. His early career was spent playing in bluegrass combo The Dry City Scat Band with David Lindley, and fronting electric rock group The Floggs. With Lindley, he co-founded revered psych outfit Kaleidoscope -- hailed by Jimmy Page as his “favorite band of all time.” A stint with the Nitty Gritty Dirt Band led to the formation of The Corvettes, which later resulted in long-term touring relationships with Linda Ronstadt and John Stewart. He contributed to pivotal session gigs with Leonard Cohen, James Taylor and Hoyt Axton and crossed paths with Sly Stone, Sonny and Cher, Gram Parsons, Gene Vincent, Jim Morrison, Frank Zappa and even Walt Disney and Hugh Hefner.
Raised in the Los Angeles suburb of Claremont, CA (located 30 miles east of Downtown L.A.) Chris Darrow, came of age with the sounds of Ritchie Valens and the Everly Brothers on the radio. He was encouraged to explore his musical curiosities at a small, family-run instrument shop called The Claremont Folk Music Center, where he purchased his first guitar at age 13. “The Folk Music Center was a godsend to a kid like me who wanted to play guitar and learn about folk music,” marvels Darrow, who at age 64, still resides in Claremont. “You could take an instrument home and play it while you were paying it off.” (Ben Harper, grandson of shop owners Charles and Dot Chase, would later record a cover of Darrow’s “Whipping Boy” as the lead single for his major label debut.) At Pitzer College, Chris spent two years assisting respected folklorist Guy Carawan, who was teaching American Folk Life Studies. Carawan is responsible for introducing the world to iconic protest anthem “We Shall Overcome.”
With Kaleidoscope, Chris Darrow and bandmates David Lindley, Solomon Feldthouse and Max Buda, pioneered an adventurous blend of Middle Eastern, country, folk, blues and psychedelia that introduced Western ears to the intriguing instrumentation of the Turkish oud and caz. The genre-defying sound of Kaleidoscope’s 1967 debut Side Trips, recorded on some of the first eight-track recording machines in America, anticipated the World Beat movement by decades. The eclectic nature of their music allowed them the opportunity to perform with a wide spectrum of artists including Jimi Hendrix, The Doors, Taj Mahal, The Byrds, Ike and Tina Turner, Bo Diddley, Steppenwolf, The Grateful Dead, The Impressions and Procul Harum. Kaleidoscope even gigged outside of the Monterey Pop Festival, playing to the Hells Angels.
Citing creative differences, Chris Darrow quit Kaleidoscope shortly after completion of the band’s sophomore effort Beacon From Mars. Soon after his departure, he got a call from his former bandmates who were in a bind. Stuart Brottman, the musician set to take over Darrow’s duties in Kaleidoscope, was not yet available for their December 1967 residency in New York City. They asked Chris to come with them.
Booked for a week of gigs at Steve Paul’s chic midtown Manhattan club The Scene, Kaleidoscope had their gear stolen almost as soon as they arrived in town. With loaner gear borrowed from fellow West Coaster Frank Zappa who was in town recording with The Mothers of Invention. The band opened for Nico (whom Darrow had previously met in L.A.), who was accompanied only by her Hammond B3 organ. “There were very few West Coast groups that had played in the East yet, and we ‘long haired hippies’ were the antithesis of the New York vibe at the time,” says Darrow while reflecting on that particularly pivotal night. “Warhol and his minions showed up, The Cyrcle was there, the Chambers Brothers, Leonard Cohen and a pre-Blood Sweat and Tears David Clayton-Thomas were all hanging out.” After Kaleidoscope’s set, Cohen approached the band about playing on his forthcoming album. They agreed to the gig and he next day Darrow, Lindley and Buda sat in Cohen’s apartment learning to play compositions that would become debut masterwork Songs of Leonard Cohen. “Boy you guys really saved me when I did my first album in New York,” says Leonard Cohen when he meets Chris Darrow face to face for the first time in 34 years. Cohen has come down the hill from nearby Mt. Baldy Zen Retreat and the two are sitting in Yianni’s Greek Café in Darrow’s hometown of Claremont CA. Lending his bass playing skills to those sessions, Darrow appears on album tracks “So Long Marianne” and “Teachers.” The Kaleidoscope/Cohen collaborations that didn’t make Songs’ final cut were later resurrected for use in Robert Altman’s film McCabe and Mrs. Miller, including alternate versions of “Sisters of Mercy” and “The Stranger Song.”
After seeing them perform in New York City, Chris Darrow took up the Nitty Gritty Dirt Band’s offer to join forces, and Chris returned to Los Angeles as an official member of the group. Chris recorded two albums with the Dirt Band including Rare Junk, and appeared in the Clint Eastwood musical Paint Your Wagon. In 1969, Darrow and the Dirt Band’s Jeff Hanna broke off and started their own group called The Corvettes, releasing two singles for the Dot label, produced by Mike Nesmith. At the same time Linda Ronstadt, a regular at the Ash Grove and Troubadour, was in immediate need of a backing band. The hard driving country sound of The Corvettes was a perfect match for the young singer’s voice. While backing Ronstadt, they asked to keep their own identity and performed a song or two per set at The Corvettes. Hanna eventually returned to his full time gig in the Dirt Band, and was replaced by (future Eagle) Bernie Leadon.
While playing with Ronstadt in New York, Chris Darrow spotted Peter Asher checking into the band’s hotel. It was 1969 and Asher was fresh from his gig at Apple Records (where he had given a young James Taylor his first record deal), about to take on the position as Director of A&R for MGM Records. In addition to performing in Ronstadt’s band, Darrow had also done occasional work as her road manager. Seizing the opportunity in front of him, Darrow extended an invite to Asher to come see their show at The Bitter End. Asher would go on to produce hit records for Linda Ronstadt for the next twenty years. Asher had also extended the offer to produce The Corvettes for MGM, but by the end of the band’s stay in New York, Bernie Leadon had been recruited into the Flying Burrito Brothers and John Ware and John London became part of Mike Nesmith’s First National Band. Though an MGM deal for the Corvettes never transpired, Asher later called on Darrow to provide fiddle and violin on James Taylor’s wildly popular second album Sweet Baby James.
Chris soon signed to Fantasy Records as a solo artist and released his first LP Artist Proof in 1972. He moved over to the United Artists label for his next two releases, Chris Darrow and Under My Own Disguise. Recorded in England and California with members of Fairport Convention, arranger and harpsichordist Dolly Collins, pedal steel genius B.J. Cole (Scott Walker, Elton John) and a host of others, these two albums pair Darrow’s raw California twang and taste for experimentation with the crisp English production of the emerging UK folk-rock scene. “I chose to go to England to record my second solo album Chris Darrow. I had recorded a real American album with Artist Proof. To move to the next rung, I felt that it was necessary to expand and search out new territories. In the early seventies there was a movement around the world to return to the roots. Groups like Fairport Convention and Steeleye Span were exploring the English tradition, and there were movements in France and Ireland pushing for the return of indigenous traditions. These people were like minds to me and I sought to meld the various traditions on a pan-world level.”
While these records have remained largely obscure, more than 35 years later, the music sounds incredibly modern. Chris Darrow was ahead of the mark on many fronts, and with these reissued titles the rest of the world may finally catch up to him.
BIOGRAPHY/AMG
by Tom Kealey
Chris Darrow was born on July 30, 1944, in Sioux Falls, South Dakota, to a military dad who soon afterward moved his family to Southern California, where Darrow still makes his home. He began learning to play anything he could get his hands on that had strings, and over the course of the next 30-plus years, became one of the most sought-after multi-instrumentalists in professional music. Shortly after high school graduation, Darrow put together a bluegrass band called the Dry City Scat Band with David Lindley, Steve Cahill, Richard Greene, and Pete Madlem. Within a couple of years, the Scat Band would become one of the hottest bluegrass ensembles in Southern California. During the summer of 1964, the Scat Band got a gig at Disneyland, which was steady work, and Darrow was able to support his new bride. During this period, signs were starting to appear indicating imminent changes in the hearts of some of the purest bluegrass musicians. Bandmate Richard Greene introduced Darrow to a friend of his who played in the Chad Mitchell Trio and who had just returned from England raving about the British music scene. Darrow had never before seen anyone with Beatle boots and long hair. The gentleman happened to be future Byrds founder Roger McGuinn. Later that summer, the Scat Band was replaced by the Scottsville Squirrel Barkers and mandolinist Chris Hillman, a hardcore bluegrass purist who quietly and sheepishly said to Darrow, "I joined a rock & roll band. I need the money. They're called the Byrds."
In the latter part of the '60s, Darrow had his first major breakthrough by putting a band together, called Kaleidoscope, with David Lindley, Solomon Feldthouse, and Max Buda. American folk, Middle Eastern, country & western, and blues, which would have seemed an unlikely combination of musical flavors, proved to mix very well and ultimately became successful. Led Zeppelin's Jimmy Page was quoted as saying that, "Kaleidoscope was his favorite band of all time." Kaleidoscope went on to release several albums in the late '60s with no hit singles, but with a large cult following that is still growing.
In late 1967, Darrow was asked to join the Nitty Gritty Dirt Band as a fiddle player/singer replacing predecessors Jackson Browne, who left to embark upon a solo career, and Bruce Kunkel, who left the band because of philosophical differences. As it turned out, the Dirt Band abruptly adopted a more electric sound anyway, which is what Kunkel had been campaigning for, but was resigned to defeat. In the meantime, Darrow's presence gave the Nitty Gritty Dirt Band some glory by virtue of their performance in the smash musical comedy flick Paint Your Wagon. The Dirt Band's short-lived and waning success would soon cause a breakup, but it would later reorganize with different personnel. Darrow, on the other hand, who has more sides to him than a mirror ball, hung out his shingle attracting a great number of new opportunities.
One of these opportunities was in the form of an intermittent working relationship with Linda Ronstadt that came as the result of an introduction by a primate. Former Monkee Michael Nesmith produced a couple of singles for a band called the Corvettes, founded by Darrow and former Dirt Band mate Jeff Hanna. The Corvettes would soon become Ronstadt's backup band. She had heard about them through Nesmith, who was the writer of her hit song "Different Drum." Darrow stayed with Ronstadt's band off and on for a number of years, witnessing a personnel change whereby Bernie Leadon came in to replace Hanna, who had decided to make his exit and re-form the Dirt Band.
Darrow was offered a recording contract by United Artists Records in 1972. He recorded the albums Chris Darrow, followed up by Under My Own Disguise the following year. "Whipping Boy," from the former, received critical acclaim and is still viewed as an attractive "cover" prospect. Over the years, he has continued to be called upon by other artists who wanted his multifaceted musical influence on their albums. Artists such as James Taylor, Sonny & Cher, Gene Vincent, Helen Reddy, and John Fahey are only a few examples.
In the mid-'90s, Darrow started recording for the Taxim label of Germany. In 2000, the label released a two-CD set, called Coyote: Straight from the Heart. It includes a 40-minute instrumental suite and 20 original songs. Taxim also released Fretless, Southern California Drive, Los Chumps with Max Buda, and Mojave, a Darrow-produced album featuring members of Emmylou Harris's band, Lone Justice, and the Byrds. In early 2001, BGO Records in England released Darrow's second and third albums, Chris Darrow and Under My Own Disguise, as a two-for-one package.
All of Kaleidoscope's early records have been re-released on Demon Records in England and Sony/Legacy in the U.S. Darrow's fabulous slide guitar work is featured on a compilation album called Everybody Slides, Vol. 2. The album features cuts by such slide greats as Lowell George, John Hammond, David Lindley, and Rory Block. It is on Sky Ranch Records in France with Virgin distribution, as well as Rykodisc in the United States. Darrow also appears on two Takoma Records compilations, Takoma Slide and Takoma Eclectic Sampler, Vol. 2.
Other sides of this mirror ball (metaphorically speaking) lay in business and photography. Darrow planned to publish a book containing photographs he has taken over the last few decades, many of which appear on album covers. By his own admission, he said he decided to take his photojournalism to a professional level after he learned that the man with whom his wife ran off was a photographer.
In retrospect, during the late '60s and through the '70s, there seemed to be a delicate balance of relationships that would influence the evolution of country rock music (as it would come to be known) for the remainder of the 20th century and beyond. Chris Darrow was right in the middle of all of this and played an integral part of the formation and ultimate success of more than just a handful of his contemporaries. In 2013, his 1972 self-titled debut was re-released by Drag City with great fanfare; the original album was appended with a handful of bonus tracks.
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