RIP
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Track:
Sky "Sunlight" Saxon
Founder of the seminal garage rock band "The Seeds" A very bright point on the music tree of evolution.
From Wiki:
Sky "Sunlight" Saxon (1946 - June 25, 2009) was an American rock and roll musician who was best known as the leader and singer of the 1960s Los Angeles garage rock band The Seeds.
Biography
Saxon was born Richard Marsh in Salt Lake City, Utah. (Different sources suggest a birth year of either 1937, 1945 or 1946.) He began his career performing doo-wop pop tunes in the early 60s under the name Little Richie Marsh. After changing his name to Sky Saxon, he formed the Electra-Fires in 1962 and then Sky Saxon & the Soul Rockers. In 1965, Saxon founded the psychedelic flower power band The Seeds with Jan Savage (guitar), Rick Andridge (keyboards) and Darryl Hooper (drums). Hit songs for Saxon and the Seeds included Can't Seem to Make You Mine and (You're) Pushin' Too Hard, which became a top 40 song in 1967 and was covered by the Monkees. Saxon's singing performance has been dismissed by critics like Lester Bangs of Rolling Stone Magazine as an American imitation of Mick Jagger, while others considered it a more complicated synthesis of Jagger, Eddie Cochran and Buddy Holly. The music on the Seeds 1966 albums The Seeds and A Web of Sound has been described as "weird psychotic blues highlighting Sky's demented vocal sermonizing."
Saxon broke up the Seeds band in 1967 and formed the Sky Saxon Blues Band. After the release of one album, A Full Spoon of Seedy Blues, Saxon reestablished the Seeds but the group did not attract any mainstream attention.
After The Seeds
In the 1970s, Saxon became a member of the Source Family religious group, a Hollywood Hills commune led by YaHoWha who gave Saxon the names Sunlight and Arlick. In 1998, Saxon orchestrated the release of a 13-CD set of the psychedelic tribal music recorded by the commune's band Yahowha 13 during the 1970s.
In subsequent years, Saxon released a number of albums under various band names including The Starry Seeds Band, Sky Saxon & Firewall and King Arthur's Court. Additionally, Saxon had several times reformed The Seeds with different musician line-ups.
In 2008, Saxon and the Seeds collaborated on some new songs and recordings with Billy Corgan of the Smashing Pumpkins. Saxon later appeared in the music video of the Smashing Pumpkins' song Superchrist.
Saxon died on June 25, 2009, in an Austin, Texas hospital. He had been hospitalized with what doctors suspected was an infection of the internal organs, but the cause of death has not yet been released. He was reported to be 63 years old.
Comments (12)
This tune reminds one of the Doors...
:( what was in the air yesterday? what a bummer
I remember this guy... and the music. My sister would play the music and I would listen and play it on the piano. Great article Inrumford!
I remember Pushin' to Hard, great post Inrumford.
He did rather model himself on Mick Jagger (who copied Don Covay), and Eddie Cochran (who owed a bit to Rosco Gordon): and so music continues to move in circles - whether increasing or decreasing only time will tell.
RIP...
Yeah, I liked Pushin Too Hard....Satisfy You sounds really good--punkish.
Sorry to hear about his death, he obviously had a lot of talent
The melody of "Nine Hundred People" sounds a little like the Doors. A while back, I was listening to the Mothers' first album Freak Out and decided Zappa had a bunch of great Seeds-like songs that were marred by his spoken imitations of Hispanic lowlifes.
Spike - I do believe you've finally figured it out!
inrumford, for once, I've figured something out, eh? :-) Are you referring to the Doors comment or the Mothers comment (or both)?
Just playing with ya - I thought that was a great observation re the Mothers.
You are da man
No you da man.