Welcome to the inaugural post down in the Valley of Wax. I've spent 25 years in the Valley, and I still don't want to leave.
So what's it all about? Well, it's another blog about vinyl culture. If you're still reading this then like me, you probably can't get enough of the stuff, and read these blogs with the avidity that you chase after elusive 45s. Although I'm a collector I've never been especially motivated by rarity, but I am on an endless quest for the novel, the unusual or the forgotten.
I picked this 45 up in Camden Market, and although a webcrawl reveals that it was a hit in 1970 there is surprisingly little information out there. This folky, funky melange of American Indian trippiness was written by one Jim Pepper, who supposedly learnt the chant from his Indian grandfather. Pepper performed the song with a group under the moniker 'Everything Is Everything', before re-recording it under his own name. I find it a seductive little single, with a lazy floating horn-line that lingers long after the record has finished. Add to that some of the most hippy-looking label artwork I've ever seen (on Vanguard Apostolic) and you have the perfect package. Not bad for 50 pence.
