Recalling the Ramblers
Got an email from dialog recordist/filmmaker Brian Miksis with a short teaser from a tape made of a bluegrass band, the Redwood Canyon Ramblers, I was in in the early ’60’s, in Berkeley, along with mandolin player Scott Hambly and banjo player Pete Berg.
Needless to say the simple existence of the tape shocked, then pleased me since the music on it was not that bad and the fidelity surprisingly good. It was apparently one of the last sets this band ever played, and was recorded at the Cabale Creamery, a cabaret in the flats of Berkeley that became the center of the folk/roots scene in the East Bay at a time when that music was gestating into what would become an important part of the Rock Revolution.
The recordist may have been Eric Thompson, a local guitarist who, incidentally, may have copped our s arrangement of “John Hardy” for a band he was, the Black Mountain Somethings (I’ll look it up later) with Jerry Garica et al. The Cabale showcased such performers as Janis Joplin, Jim Kweskin, Toni Brown (Joy of Cooking), and, I think, Jerry and others whom I’ll insert here as I think of them.
I gotta go and sheetrock my bathroom, now, but I’ll be back to elaborate on what I’ve posted here.
