Evergreen Blueshoes: "The Ballad of Evergreen Blueshoes", Full Album (1969)

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• published: 09 Dec 2016
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Side 1: 01: Life’s Railway to Heaven (0:00 – 3:52) 02: Walking Down the Line (3:52 – 7:24) 03: Line Out (7:24 – 8:09) 04: Amsterdam in 1968 (8:09 – 11:21) 05: Everything’s Fine Right Now (11:21 – 14:04) 06: Johnny B. Goode (14:04 – 17:16) Side 2: 07: The Hedge Hog’s Song (17:16 – 19:57) 08: The Raven (19:57 – 21:51) 09: Mrs. Cohen’s Little Boy (21:51 – 23:47) 10: Moon Over Mt. Olympus (23:47 – 25:24) 11: Jewish Teahouse (25:24 – 28:52) 12: The Everblue Express (28:52 - 33:52) Track 1 was composed by Skip Battin, Al Rosenberg, Lanny Mathijssen, Ken Kleist, & Chester McCracken Track 2 was composed by Bob Dylan Track 3 was composed by Skip Battin & Al Rosenberg Track 4 was composed by Mark Levine Tracks 5 & 7 were composed by Mike Heron Track 6 was composed by Chuck Berry Track 8 was composed by Edgar Allan Poe, Skip Battin, & Al Rosenberg Track 9 was composed by David Cohen Tracks 10 & 11 were composed by Al Rosenberg Track 12 was composed by Skip Battin & Kim Fowley Personnel: Skip Battin: bass guitar, lead vocals Al Rosenberg: guitar, harmony vocals Lanny Mathijssen: guitar, harmony vocals Ken Kleist: organ, harmony vocals Chester McCracken: drums, harmony vocals I love Skip Battin. He’s one of the best bass guitarists I’ve ever heard and is among my favorite songwriters. His solo albums are all great from top to bottom, and he made every band he joined, from The Byrds to the Burrito Brothers to the New Riders, exponentially better with the addition of his songs, bass playing, vocals, and overall personality. He’s one of the most important figures in Country Rock/Progressive Bluegrass given his overall body of work. All that said, this album is horrible. The Evergreen Blueshoes was Skip’s band prior to his entry into The Byrds. The group was formed by Skip and his friend Al Rosenberg in 1967. Prior to that point Skip had had success in the pop duo Skip & Flip with Gary Paxton (the founder of the seminal Bakersfield International record label) in the late ‘50s/early ‘60s, and had recorded sporadic solo records & led solo projects while working as a session bass guitarist for the likes of Gene Vincent, Rick Nelson, and upstart Warren Zevon. Skip actually recorded a poppy version of a Bob Dylan song before even The Byrds’ “Mr. Tambourine Man”, releasing a version of “I Don’t Believe You (She Acts Like We Never Have Met)” in 1964. But I digress, back to the Blueshoes. Battin & Rosenberg began performing the LA club circuit together, taking up a residency at a place called The Corral. Battin and Rosenberg invited the other members to augment their live sound. Skip tried to enlist Clarence White into the Blueshoes. It is unclear whether or not Clarence performed with the group at any point, but it’s clear he did not become a permanent member, opting to stay with The Reasons (Nashville West) until being invited into The Byrds in ’68. Jimmy Ibbotson of Nitty Gritty Dirt Band fame was also a member of the Blueshoes at some point, though he does not appear on their album. After gaining some popularity from their Corral performances, the group signed with Amos Records (the company that released the albums of Shiloh & Longbranch Pennywhistle) and recorded their only album. My God is it terrible. I have no idea what these guys were thinking when they made this record. I’ve heard it characterized as “maddening”, and I think that’s the perfect word to describe it. It’s not just weird; a lot of it is just plain stupid. The songs are infuriatingly bad, with the organ obnoxiously blasting dissonance and the annoying spoken word passages. It’s just horrid. It might be the most irritating example of ‘60s culture ever captured on vinyl. I can’t accurately describe how bad this album is, yall just have to listen yourself. I posted it just because I’m a completest and I love Skip Battin. At no point in Skip’s career did he ever create music like this. In his pre-Byrds days, he played fun radio-safe pop songs. His time in The Byrds showed his love for Vaudevillian music (which a lot of people dislike but I love), and he wrote some of the best Country Rock songs ever with them (“Yesterday’s Train”, “You All Look Alike”, “Well Come Back Home”, & “Precious Kate”, for example). As a solo artist, he continued to explore the Vaudeville/Country Rock styles, with great results. 1973’s “Topanga Skyline” shows his affinity for Bluegrass and cements his name as among the best Country Rock songwriters of all time, a status that was further enhanced by his tenure with the New Riders. I hope I’ve conveyed how much I love and appreciate Skip’s entire career body of work here. It’s mystifying that someone so talented could have been involved in something so uniformly terrible. None of what Skip is associated with musically is present on this album. His bass playing is probably the only good thing about this record. If you love Skip as much as I do, you’ll find this perhaps a little amusing, or perhaps maddening.