“Sacramento conjures up visions of Ronald Reagan and other politicians, and boasts the only state capital which isn’t earthquake proof. If that doesn’t bring you a laugh, mentioning Sacramento music is sure to bring a chuckle.”
I found this old record in my mom’s old LP collection when I moved back to the Sacramento-area last year. This LP from the now-defunct K108 radio station caught my eye due to its interesting artwork. It’s a collection of songs about Sacramento, all in a variety of musical styles popular in 1974. There’s some funk, folk, rock and instrumentals about the area. Not all of it is good, but it’s definitely a time capsule.
I tried my best, but I was able to digitize this record into MP3s that you can download and listen to here on Google Drive.
Some silly standouts include “Sacramento Boogie (Part II)”. I found mention of this song on this old website on the history of Earth Radio (KSFM 102, 1974-1979). Don Wright, the Program Director of Earth Radio, said:
They were having this contest where you write and record a song about Sacramento and send it in to the station. If your song was chosen a winner, it went on an album of songs about Sacramento! So Michael Sheehy, weekender Burt Baumgartner and I head down to my cousin’s recording studio in the Bay Area to record the hastily composed ‘Sacramento Boogie – Part 2.’ “We got the tape to KXOA-FM just before the deadline. We submitted the tape as a band called Pye Flasher.
From what I can tell most of the musicians were/are amateurs. The discogs profile for this album has a couple of mis-attributions to similarly-named artists.
Doing some research on the names on White Pages and Facebook showed me that a large percentage of these artists have since passed away. The few that are still alive I messaged on Facebook but haven’t heard back from yet.
The album cover is a copy of the famous Avalon Ballroom “Girl with the Green Hair” concert poster from 1966 by Stanley Mouse and Alton Kelley:
Which itself is a copy of the 1896 art nouveau advertisement for Job Rolling Papers by Alphonse Mucha:
Listen to the whole album on YouTube:
Tracklist
| A1 | Iris and Tom Messina | Lay It On The Line |
| A2 | Wesley Hamilton | River Rafting Mama |
| A3 | Robert D. Hale | American River Ramble |
| A4 | Andrew Diaz | Return Of The Delta King |
| A5 | Pye Flasher | Sacramento Boogie (Part Ii) |
| A6 | Steve Ayers | My Home Town Sacramento |
| B1 | Wright & Ruggles | Mather Home Grown Feeling |
| B2 | Obvious Lee | Valley High |
| B3 | David Wayne | Sacramento, 1849-1974 |
| B4 | Jeffrey Goodrich | City Limits |
| B5 | George, Paul, Lennon & The Lucies | All Right For Me |
| B6 | Steve Cook & Bob Baker | A Love Like Before |
