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Topic: Guitarist David Rea: info? |
Pete Finney
From:
Nashville Tn.
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Posted 1 Feb 2009 8:40 am |
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I'm wondering if anybody knows anything about David Rea, who played guitar on many Ian and Sylvia albums in the 60's (among many other things). In searching the web the last reference I can find was from the late 90's and he was living on Bainbridge Island near Seattle...
Anybody have any more recent information? |
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Dave Harmonson
From:
Seattle, Wa
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Posted 1 Feb 2009 1:40 pm
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Pete, I put in a call to a friend of mine who interviewed him for his Heritage Music magazine around 2000. As far as I know he is still around here. I had the pleasure of sitting around a playing a few acoustic tunes with him a few years back at The Northwest Folklife Festival here in Seattle. He had some great stories about playing with Ian and Sylvia and Gordon Lightfoot. After Ian and Sylvia played a show with Buck Owens in about 1966 Ian decided the next day to go electric. The sound of Buck and Don really had an impact on Ian.
David said they didn't know anything about playing electric guitars and it was a real struggle for awhile. When I hear something back from my friend I'll let you know. |
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Bob Blair
From:
Edmonton, Alberta, Canada
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Posted 2 Feb 2009 7:22 pm
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| I know that he was real young (still in his teens I think) when he played on that first Lightfoot album - he did that great intro to "For Loving Me". I also remember that he did an album of his own stuff in the late 60's or very early 70's- one of the songs was called "Maverick Child", that I learned off a copy of that album my sister had, and it is a real good tune - I still do it sometimes. I still love hearing that early Ian and Sylvia stuff. Monster talent! |
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Pete Finney
From:
Nashville Tn.
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Posted 2 Feb 2009 8:33 pm
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| Thanks guys... I found contact info through another source (we have mutual friends as it turns out), I just spoke to him today; he's in Portland Oregon these days. Nothing but good things to say about Gordon Lightfoot and Ian and Sylvia, and a very knowledgable fan of pedal steel too... |
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Dave Harmonson
From:
Seattle, Wa
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Posted 2 Feb 2009 8:42 pm
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| Pete, I'm glad you were able to reach him. It's funny that the friend of mine I had mentioned in my previous post just called tonight and hadn't heard anything about him since around 2000 and that made us both curious as to what he was up to. Glad to hear he's doing well in Portland. |
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Mark Lind-Hanson
From:
Menlo Park, California, USA
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Posted 8 Feb 2009 5:59 am
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| He made a very interesting record in the mid seventies called Slewfoot, which featured a huge pile of Grateful Dead related people- Keith & Donna Godchaux, Bob Weir, Buddy Cage & Dave Torbert. There were mainly original songs but a couple covers also. Have not seen that record's hide nor hair in decades. But I doubt I would have heard of it either had not those other folks played on it. He came to Ian and Sylvia after Cage left them. |
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Mark Lind-Hanson
From:
Menlo Park, California, USA
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Posted 8 Feb 2009 6:01 am
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| Or at least that is just MY understanding. He might have been with Ian and Sylvia BEFORE Cage & Amos Garrett but I am not exactly a history expert on that matter. |
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Bob Blair
From:
Edmonton, Alberta, Canada
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Posted 8 Feb 2009 6:32 am
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| Mark, David Rea was with Ian and Sylvia before they formed the "Great Speckled Bird", which included Cage and Garrett (replaced respectively by Ben Kieth and David Wilcox). |
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Mark Lind-Hanson
From:
Menlo Park, California, USA
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Posted 9 Feb 2009 3:41 pm
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| You see- I knew I wasn't on sure ground there. |
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Bryan Bradfield
From:
Lethbridge, Alberta, Canada.
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Posted 17 Feb 2009 7:16 pm
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| I caught David Rea at The Riverboat, in Toronto in the late 1960's. He was very confident and very competent - very good guitarist - good sense of humour. It was an evening that obviously stayed in my memory banks. |
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Jason Odd
From:
Stawell, Victoria, Australia
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Posted 18 Feb 2009 6:01 am
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I believe he left Ian & Sylvia in '68, I'm sure he's on at least one of their country-rock albums (one for Vanguard, one for MGM) from that year.
Ken Kamulsky was the bass player and stayed on to be in the original version of Great Speckled Bird.
I got the impression he wasn't a fan of that period, the country-rock transformation, etc. |
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Pete Finney
From:
Nashville Tn.
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Posted 18 Feb 2009 8:10 am
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David plays on both the albums that Ian and Sylvia did in Nashville in 1968; "Nashville" on Vanguard, and "Full Circle" on MGM. He speaks very highly of the experience of playing with the Nashville players, among them Jerry Reed, Buddy Spicher, Weldon Myrick, Fred Carter Jr. and Pete Drake. Ian and Sylvia took a year or so off after those two albums; during that time David got his own Capitol recording contract which I assume has something to do with why he didn't rejoin them for "Great Speckled Bird". Of course they didn't do too badly getting Amos Garrett on guitar!
Further trivia: David's first solo album was produced by his old friend Felix Pappalardi, who before become famous for producing "Cream" and forming "Mountain" with Leslie West had played bass with Ian and Sylvia. Part of the album features Nashville studio guys but he recorded a Robert Johnson song in New York with "Mountain" too; a pretty diverse album to say the least...
David also co-wrote "Mississippi Queen" for the band which has probably made him more money over the years than all his years as a sideman put together! |
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