Monday, March 17, 2008

"Restless Cowboys" - December 1977

So...it's the Winter of 1977 and I'm 15 years old. I'm at a new High School (Decatur) in Federal Way, WA and with a brand new (literally) school are brand new pianos, and in particular, a brand new Grand piano in the Choir room. A 6'5" Kawai if I remember.

For a kid with delusions of Elton John, a big black piano all to his own is quite a thing. And since I was well ahead of my classes, I could use the room at my leisure. So, pretty much every day you could find me in the choir room, playing that grand piano and writing songs.

This particular Winter day, I wheeled a pair of boom mic stands in, set up a stereo cassette and recorded a song I had been writing, "Restless Cowboys". It's a very Elton-y tune to be sure - I even fake a British accent here and there!

The take you're about to hear suffers for the deterioration of the cassette at the top, but at least the whole performance wasn't destroyed. Really calls out the need to archive these 30-year old recordings. So, for your enjoyment, here's the missing song from "Tumbleweed Connection," (hee :) ) "Restless Cowboys" - enjoy!

Download "Restless Cowboys"
(right click this link and "Save Target As..." to your local machine)

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