Route 66 - March 7, 2019

So far this year we've highlighted albums released in 1994 that were commercially successful and very popular at the time. Tonight we're going to shift gears and play an album that was not well-known when it was released 25 years ago, but has slowly built up a following over time. It is the second album from the band Pavement: "Crooked Rain, Crooked Rain."

This album was released on February 14, 1994 and was not at all a success. It sold very few copies, and never even charted on the Bilboard Top 200 Albums. Compare that with last week's album from Soundgarden, which sold nearly one million copies in its first week and debuted on at Number One. But Pavement and the their album would slowly, steadily win fans. They influenced and inspired many young bands, and today the album is considered one of the landmark rock records of that era.

The band, lead by singer Stephen Malkmus, was from Stockton, California and they crafted songs not about traditional California sounds, but more like typical American Suburbs. As a result, all teenagers and twenty-somethings, especially Generation X, could relate to their music.

The album, "Crooked Rain, Crooked Rain" works as a complete work, listening from start to finish. It did, however, produce one radio friendly song that had some mainstream airplay and even a fun music video back in '94. That would be the track "Cut Your Hair" which is the one you're most likely to hear today. In fact, I just heard it last week at the Foxy Loxy Coffee Shop in Savannah.

Pavement broke up in 1999, but have reunited several times. All their original albums have been reissued on deluxe editions and on vinyl, and they recently released a greatest hits compilation entitled "Quarantine the Past" - which is a lyric from their song "Gold Soundz."

Here now are two songs from "Crooked Rain, Crooked Rain" -- "Gold Soundz" and "Cut Your Hair."

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If you've been listening to this show over the past few weeks, you've heard many profiles of musicians who played at the Woodstock Music and Arts Festival in 1969. And you've probably noticed how many ultimately had a sad, tragic end. Dying too young, or maybe an accident. Well this is not intentional on my part, it just happens to be an unfortunate coincidence of rock history. Tonight I want to remember another artist that also met a sad end: the singer-songwriter and folk-musician Tim Hardin.

Tim Hardin played the first night of Woodstock, Friday August 15th, 1969. He was a guitarist originally from Eugene, Oregon. He was known in the mid-sixties for his solo career, and also wrote many songs recorded by other artists including Rod Stewart and The Carpenters.

Unfortunately, Tim Hardin developed a Heroin addiction that consumed his life. He never recorded again after 1973, and he was found dead of an overdose in 1980 at the age of 39.

His biggest hit remains the Top 40 Song "If I Were A Carpenter" which has been recorded and covered by hundreds of musicians over the past 50 years. It is a beautiful, poetic song filled with touching lyrics and emotional music. Here now is Tim Hardin's original version.