YouTube contributor, RoswellReptilian, tells us that Tim Dawe‘s “Little Boy Blue” was “used as bumper music for WMMS‘s ‘Cleveland Buzzard Morning Zoo’ in the 1970-80s.” Can you name the electronic musical instrument that you hear at the opening of the song, as well as during each repeated instrumental passage leading up to the verses?
“What more can one say about Tim Dawe, after all, than that he is from Chicago by way of New York City, Missouri, Wisconsin, La Jolla, Los Angeles, and Rangoon, that he once went to Yale without much success, that he used to support himself by performing Dylan songs at a time when and where no one knew Dylan from Schmylan, that he went on to win himself a spanky two-week booking at Randy Sparks’ intimate Ledbetter’s in the Wilton, Wisconsin Midwest Folk Festival, and that he plays the guitar divinely, sings, and writes little songs?“
Liner notes to Zapped, 1970 sampler LP of songs from Straight/Bizarre, the Warner Brothers subsidiaries established for Zappa-related musical projects & productions.
1969 stereo LP Penrod
Issued on Straight
Thanks to the Discogs.com contributor who provides invaluable history behind Dawe’s one and only release during his brief association with Straight/Warner Brothers:
“Released in 1969, Tim Dawe’s Penrod was one of the few entries on Frank Zappa’s ironically-monikered Straight Records label — where it was nestled between Jeff Simmons’ Naked Angels original motion picture soundtrack and Tim Buckley’s Blue Afternoon, both of which were also issued that year. It has been suggested that Penrod was a pseudonym for the name of the assembled musicians. However, Penrod is, in fact, the fictional Penrod Schofield, a preteen whose misadventures were anthologized in a collection of humorous drawings by Pulitzer Prize-winning author, Booth Tarkington. He is portrayed on the outer LP jacket in two cover illustrations hand-drawn by Gordon Grant. For this recording, Dawe (acoustic guitar and vocals) is joined by Arnie Goodman (keyboards), Chris Kebeck (guitar), Claude Mathis (drums), and Don Parrish (bass), and the ten-track project was realized under the supervision of producer and arranger Jerry Yester, who also scored light orchestrations for several of Dawe’s originals.“
Issued on LP
… as well as 8-track tape
When this piece was originally posted, for the life of me I could not identify the lead instrument in the intro to “Little Boy Blue” — perhaps one of the deeper double-reed instruments, like the bassoon? Upon reflection years later (April 2023), however, methinks one of the early pre-synth electronic keyboards (ondioline? clavioline?) is being employed on this song.
Tim Thorne Dawe would go on to record one more album — 1976’s Yeah! attributed to Timothy and Ms. Pickens with Natural Act.
