Music Connection - February 17/ March 2 1983 - John Stewart has created a dreamlike look at the Golden State with this album which epitomizes the "California Sound'' as pioneered by the Eagles, Peter Asher-produced records for LindaRonstadt, and latter-day Fleetwood Mac.

Perhaps a better classification for this music would be modern folk music; basic strum songs adorned with a 24 track sound. Stewart's formula goes something like this: start with an acoustic finger-picking pattern or rhythm guitar figure, add a low, whispery voice and a solid, simplistic rhythm section.  On top of this, Stewart plays one or more overdubbed lead guitars on almost every song.  A healthy dose of echo gives the album the dreaminess which is the most enjoyable facet of the recording; Stewart's lead lines float above the melody and create a mood of spaciness that is very effective.

'The Eyes of Sweet Virginia' is the truest to Stewart's folk roots.  The song is uncluttered and clear with only the simple sounds of vocals and acoustic guitar presented to great effect.

Though I am neither a fan of the California sound or folk music, I can't deny the craftmanship Stewart shows here as producer, singer, guitarist and songwriter.
(Bruce Duff)

BAM - March 25 - The great singer-songwriter Stewart is back on the track, having apparently locked himself in a room with copies of his old Kingston Trio recordings and the collected works of Fleetwood Mac before committing his new songs to vinyl. With the help of co-arranger / musician Chuck McDermott and the direct influence of Mac's Lindsey Buckingham on two tracks, Stewart has transposed his highway visions to the big city without losing the romanticism or tenderness which characterised his landmark albums "Willard" and "California Bloodlines."  "Blondes" sounds like Stewart's response to "Tusk."

The electric guitars here are often played like banjos or mandolins, and the lyrics speak of the "search here among the stones/ To find a girl who looks like home," and the autobiographical truth that "Rock and roll's a sailor/ In port for just one day."  The sound is experimental in 'Judy in G Major,' which combines the startling rhythmic sensibilities of Lindsey's 'Go Your Own Way' with the spunk of Stewart's full-toned vocal.  'Golden Gate' and 'The Eyes of Sweet Virginia' are folk songs handled more simply with acoustic guitars.  The album does show Stewart losing his grip - 'Tall Blondes' needs more substance and 'Girl Down the River' is simply out of John's register - but overall the disc represents a timely renaissance for one of California's best.
(Mark Leviton)

Schlager - 8 February 1983 - A theme can destroy a rock album, make it overelaborate and pretentious beyond control and good sense.  But unity, cohesion and a feeling of connection between the songs, can also make the whole better than the detail.

In other words the album better than the songs taken one by one.

John Stewart's new one is that kind of album.  We haven't heard anything about him since ''Bombs Away Dream Babies" and "Dream Babies Go Hollywood,'' but here he's back with new tales about the beautiful people along the coast of Southern California.  The first song is called 'All the Desperate Men' and the last 'Blonde Star,' and inbetween there are stories with titles like 'The Queen of Hollywood High' and 'Jenny Was a Dream Girl.' You can imagine what it sounds like yourself.

John Stewart - he works together with someone called McDermott on "Blondes" - is good at building up moods.  Above cuttingly clear guitars, soundwise distinctly separated from the other instruments, lies John Stewart's rich, confident voice, always with a good melody to work with.

This music sounds seemingly simple, seemingly harmless.  But behind the simplicity lie layers of arrangements and ''clever doings,'' there is a garden to walk into, full of exquisitely beautiful flowers and trees where you can pick Stewart's fruits.  Both sweet and sour, as it happens to be in this case.

I liked the predecessors to "Blondes," and I have just as much weakness for this one.  I have yet to find the pearl that shines brighter than the others, like 'Gold' or 'The Raven,' but it will soon come out of the oyster.

John Stewart had a career before this trilogy (it started with the Kingston Trio millions of years ago), but nothing he did then has this maturity and confidence.
(Jens Peterson - translated from the original Swedish by Maia Rehlin).

I'm delighted to be able to tell you that Record Corner, 27 Bedford Hill, Balhsm, London SW12 9EX, has at last been able to secure copies of the Swedish album, so all of you who have been driven crazy by the apparent inability of any importer to come up with the goods should contact them immediately.  If you want to phone first to make sure the initial stocks have not already sold out, the number is 0l-673-1066.  Ask for Dave and tell him Omaha Rainbow sent you!  The album will cost you £6-99 plus 70p postage.

Dave also has in stock the American pressing of Ian Tyson's "Old Corrals and Sagebrush" (ColumbiaFC 38949) for £6-60 and Guy Clark's "Better Days" for a bargain price £5-99.  If you order a total of two or three albums the total postage is £1-10; over three is only £l-80.  Go on, treat yourself for Christmas.....

A good while back I heard from American journalist, Rex Rutkowski that he had talked to John on the phone about "Blondes." I had hoped that Rex would let me have a tanscript of the interview, particularly as John had said some very nice things about this magazine, but I'm still waiting.  However, the 6 May 1983 issue of BAM did carry his feature under the heading, "John Stewart's Search For the Soul of America."  I'm taking the liberty of extracting a few quotes from Rex's article, beginning with John's response to the question of how it is that if someone were to listen to the body of his work and not know anything about his background, they likely would assume he had spent his formative years on a heartland farm.

"I think it comes from travelling with the Kingston Trio and driving through America and seeing the farmlands of Kansas and the plains states, seeing the character of America there and really touching the soul of America.  California is the spirit of America. Kansas is the soul of America, getting to where the real strength of the country lies."

Moving on to ''Blondes", John says, "It's an album about the California girl.  The songs started to fall that way, and I decided to write more to bring that idea into focus.  The California girl mystique is the symbol of healthy sex, healthy lifestyle, innocence. It's blonde, it's tan, it's fun. California is fun."

Asked to evaluate the Kingston Trio's contribution to contemporary music, John replied, "They were responsible for exposing American folk music to the country and making it fun and accessible for everyone to listen to and participate in.  I think they did one of the things that is the earmark of a really significant performer or performers.  It transcends being popular.  It inspires people to do what they do.  Presley did it.  Dylan did it.  The Beatles did it.  I'm sure Springsteen is doing it.  I'm sure every group has been influenced by another group.  But to turn on a whole nation to do what you're doing (as the Trio did) is very, very significant.  There would have been no Peter, Paul and Mary.  Dylan would not be doing what he was doing, I venture to say.  The Kingston Trio started the folk movement in America and received no credit for doing it."

Of his recording contract with Allegiance after the major labels had turned him down ("They didn't want to know about me. 'He's been around so long.  We don't want that.  We want Duran Duran or a Romeo Void."')  John had this to say. "I'm very lucky.  I seem to find a way to keep doing it and get it out there.  You can say that some guys just don't know when to quit.  I just don't give up.  The music industry is a business of people buying what you do.  If enough people buy it, record companies will give you what you want.  They don't care how good your music is.  They don't care if you are a decent human being.  They care only, 'Do people buy your records?'"

There's always been for John, "a problem with radio.  In Phoenix, a disc jockey played my records like they were hits and people bought them like they were hits.  People don't know what they like, they like what they know.  It's the great collective taste of America and the world and we don't know what it is.....I know a lot of albums that should have been hits for people like Jesse Winchester and Tom Waits, and a lot of albums that shouldn't have been."

Looking to the future, "I think the music power structure is changing and radio will be a less dominating factor in that structure.  I believe cable television will be the new form for music.....MTV is the best thing to happen to pop music since the radio.  I think this will be a new age in which music has fewer big pop stars because more people will have a chance.  It will be much more immediately accessible.  It's just the beginning for me, the training ground for what's coming.

If what I'm doing is a specialised item that only a few people like - and there is a group of 50,000 who always seem to support what I do - if you can reach that many people, I'm still able to do what I'm doing and make a living at it.  I may not get rich.
There's a chance I may.  But I'm really enjoying it.  I'm very lucky.  If a lot of people decide to buy my records, that's terrific.  I will not refuse the money.  I've been rich and poor, and rich is better."

Having hit the heights with 'Gold,' does he feel he has gone back to Square One once again?  "No.  I just learned what Square Two was.  A hit record means nothing more than you get to do another one.  It's almost like a gold medal at the Olympics.  It's like being a runner.  I did win a race, which meant a lot to me.  It meant it could be done."  It also enabled those longtime supporters to say, "See, we weren't crazy after all," John continued.

Finally, returning to "Blondes"....."It is what it is.  It's reached its goal.  Hopefully the record company has its own goal for it. The best songs and characters are on "Bloodlines."  As a total record, as a painting, as a movie "Bloodlines" was much more a rite of passage for me.  I just feel I'm getting better at making records.  "Blcndes" feels easier to me.  I just know what I'm doing."

What John has been doing since that interview is virtually no live work, a lot of songwriting, and a lot of time spent in the recording studio.

As best as I can tell, there are two albums in progress.  One is recorded with Nick Reynolds and may come out on the Takoma label, which Allegiance acquired earlier this year.  Lindsey Buckingham was heavily involved with these sessions, so he finally got to make a Kingston Trio record (!?!).  At the beginning of September Nick Reynolds called Kingston Korner's Ben Blake, and Ben was able to squeeze a little bit of information out of him.  At that tirne, six songs had been recorded in Los Angeles back in June.  Lindsey Buckingham was the producer and had co-written one of the songs with John.  Nick and John had co-written two more, whilst there were some "familiar surprises'' among the other three.  Make of that what you will.  The six songs had been recorded in seven days, which Nick said was an eye-opening experience for Lindsey, who is used to spending six months on a single cut.

The second album should be John's official follow-up to ''Blondes,'' cnce again on the Allegiance label.  Again, a number of songs have been recorded already and we can look for the release of that early in 1984...I think...I hope.....

Well, you must have got used to the diet of misinformation and half-truths you're fed in this column and the only thing I can say in my defence is that a) I get the information from John and then, as soon as I've committed it to print, he changes things around or b) I continually fail to get hold of John to corroborate the information my team of sleuths have come up with.

It did lock as if Molly Swan was going to talk to John for this Tenth Anniversary Issue of Omaha Rainbow, but right at the time the final arrangements were being made John received the sad news that his father had died.  I imagine anyone who has followed John's career over the years will appreciate what a profound influence his father had on him.  Those of you who have copies of the elusive ''Sunstorm" album will be aware of the track, 'An Account of Haley's Comet,' the narration of which was done by his father.  On behalf of everyone who reads this magazine, I would like to pass on my condolences to John and the remainder of his family.

Molly had earlier been able to conduct a lengthy interview with Chuck McDermott, the results of which you will find elsewhere in this issue.  I certainly found it fascinating, but was a little concerned that there was no record available for anyone wishing to hear his current music.  A constant background to my laborious typing of this magazine has been a cassette of demos of Chuck's new music.  I love it!  It's not country and it's not what you'd expect from hearing his work on "Blondes."  Molly talked of it as being narrative rock, and that might be a good description, though it might not convey how raunchy it can get.

Anyway, I'm delighted to say that Chuck has agreed to put together a selection of his songs for readers of Omaha Rainbow, and you'll be able to get these by writing direct to Molly Swan at 604 Fremont Avenue No-3, South Pasadena, California 91030, USA.  Send her a blank cassette in one of those padded envelopes.  Include a self-addressed label which she can then put on that envelope when she returns your cassette with Chuck's songs duly recorded onto it.  Also send her some IRC's (InternationalReply Coupons) which you can get from your post office, which means she won't be out-of-pocket through having to pay your return postage.  It also means you don't have to send her any cash or cheques.  This may seem a complicated way of going about things, but in the long run I feel it will be the simplest for her.  The demos I have sound like they're good enough to go straight on to an album, so I don't think you are likely to be disappointed.  If you run a record company, you definitely owe it to yourself to hear Chuck's music!!!!!

Finally, all you youngsters who missed out on Kingston Trio recordings when they were first released have help at hand in the shape of Kingston Korner Inc.  Ben Blake, Jack Rubeck and Allan Shaw have done an awful lot during the past few years to chronicle the past and present activities of the Trio and its various members.  Earlier this year Bob Shane, who now owns the Kingston Trio name and plays concerts and releases albums with his current version of the group, asked Allan about having business cards with "somebody's name and address on them" to hand out to eager fans who seek access to the old, out-of-print recordings, etc., after performances.

This has now been dcne and anyone seeking particular Kingston Trio albums, or merely wondering what might be available, should write direct to Allan Shaw at: 6 So. 230 Cohasset Road, Naperville, Illinois 60540, USA.  It will certainly help him if you can enclose a couple of IRC's and should ensure you get a speedy air mailed reply to your enquiry.

A final finally.....the John Stewart track listed at number five in the current Lomax Gold Record Collection really does exist and is not some elaborate Tenth Anniversary Issue hoax!  Definitely one for the John Stewart completists.