Joy of Cooking
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When my wife's mother passed away last month my wife set me to task to find music for the memorial. She wanted music that her mother liked. I was asked for Simon & Garfunkle, Joan Baez, Bob Dylan, Melanie, Joni Mitchell, It's A Beautiful Day, Steeleye Span, Joan Armatrading, and this band Joy of Cooking. Now I've heard of all of those, and we had most of the tracks that we needed. Joy of Cooking was pretty alien to me. My wife reminded me that she made me try to find it several months before but to no avail. For whatever reason I found it in a couple of hours when we needed it. This is a damn fine album. I've played it about 30 times now. The band was formed by two women Toni Brown (piano) and Terry Garthwaite (guitar) in Berkeley, California 1967. This first album was released in 1971 on Capitol records. It's a pretty hippy album but it's got some great vibes, rhythms, and lyrics. The band seems to have piano, acoustic guitar, drums, bongos, and bass. They're pretty tight. The sound overall reminds me of Janis Joplin being backed by a hybrid of The Holding Company, The Grateful Dead, with Carol King on piano. Possibly Joni Mitchell thrown in there somewhere. I find it strange that I had never heard of this group. My wife is always whipping out something cool here and there and saying "oh, you've never heard that?". It's so hard to know what people know. I'm not happy about the circumstances surrounding finding this album but it a way it makes it a bit more special. As always check it out if you get the chance. I'm posting the first three tracks from the album. It's so good it's too hard to pick random ones.
Comments (24)
Joy of Cooking – Too Late, But Not Forgotten 4:20
Joy of Cooking – Down My Dream 4:16
It's like comfort food, very familiar(even though I've not heard of them), makes you feel good & right at home. Down home goodness fer shur!
I thought the same. It sounded like something I've heard before but haven't really. Totally comfort food.
Toni & Terry! They wuz definitely cooking.
I know huh. They had boogie and woogie. I like how some of their sounds kind of snake around the rhythm like the Dead did. Their band name doesn't lend itself to easy googling. Probably in the 80's they should've reformed as an electro new wave group and called themselves The Joy of Sex.
Ha! Branding and market placement are everything!
They made quite a splash in the Bay Area (and probably elsewhere) in the early 70s. Thanks for spotlighting this fine group.
Mike - If only I could've told them... I'll have to fire up the Wayback Machine.
Spike - I know my wife's mother had to have heard them when she was at Calvin College at the time. They slipped by my parents radar in nowheresville Oklahoma.
Wow, that hint of soul is enough to get me moving after a full days teaching. Hope all is well on your front, I can see why this was one of her favorites
I have just been playing Closer to the ground , their 2nd release for the last week. They were pretty popular among the folk crowd in the early 70's.
Rawk it's as good as it get right now.
Cpetersonart3 - oooh how is it? And what a coincidence.
There wasa buzz about them because it was a women led band just as the feminist movement took off. Saw them live - they were really good.
I did read that they were the second female led group to land a major record contract. It said the first was fanny. How cool to have seen them live.
Well done SamBro - you never cease to amaze me !!!
Ha ha! I also saw Fanny. Forget about different genres and age, Fanny weren't very good.
Lizzie - and yet I cannot amaze myself. Oh the tragedy! :)
Jonh - Yeah I don't think I'll be picking up any Fanny any time soon. Wait that came out wrong. You know what I mean.
Yeah, that's what you're telling the missus!
She'll be the first to know. ;)
i guess i'd encountered Joy of Cooking but never really gave it time. the tracks here tell me i was wrong to do that. really digging. it's a glimmer of positivity given the circumstances, that's a real good thing.
It is a bit of a good thing. The album now will always remind me of the situation but that's not such a bad thing.
Hey, Thanks for that! I'm surprised... I had never heard of that either... great tracks tho. Thanks for that!
Sam this is a touching and melodious post, thanks.
When I was 2 years old, the drummer lived next door. He used to let me play on his practice pad. Terry Garthwaite is still active and about a year ago, they put out a great live disc. I remember my mom taking me backstage to meet them at a show in Berkeley when I was about 5 and being hopelessly infatuated with Toni Brown.