Farewell Aldebaran
Encyclopedia
Farewell Aldebaran by Judy Henske
and Jerry Yester
is an album issued in 1969 on Frank Zappa
's innovative Straight
record label. It contains a wild mixture of styles, as though recorded by ten different bands, all featuring Henske's almost gothic lyrics and remarkable vocal range, which might lead one to think there were also ten different singers. Instrumentally the songs are held together by Yester's piano. The album, which has achieved a cult following, is also notable for its early use of synthesisers. Although the album got some good reviews it failed to sell in large quantities, purchasers possibly having been driven away by its sheer eclecticism.
. They married in 1963. A few years later Henske's career was faltering as a result of ill-advised forays into cabaret while Yester had produced albums by Tim Buckley
and The Association
, and replaced Zal Yanovsky
in The Lovin' Spoonful
.
The pair, with their new-born daughter, moved to Los Angeles in 1968. Henske shared a manager, Herb Cohen
, with Frank Zappa
, who suggested to her that she should put music to some of the verse she was writing. Yester, at this point, was working with Yanovsky on the latter's first solo album, and experimenting with new electronic and other sound effects. The couple combined to put together Farewell Aldebaran, drawing on a varied selection of their musician friends, and it was issued on Zappa and Cohen's new label.
Henske and Yester went on to form a more conventional band, Rosebud
, before they went their separate ways at the start of the 1970s. The album was reissued on CD by Radioactive Records http://www.radioactiverecords.com/ in 2005.
-fractured "Lullaby" and then the melodramatic "St. Nicholas Hall", its satirical anti-clerical lyrics matched by choral samples from the Chamberlin
keyboard. "Three Ravens", a sublime slice of baroque pop
, fully orchestrated, based upon a Scottish folk lyric, is especially revered.
"Raider", which has been described as an "acid sea shanty", has a bluegrass feel created by bowed banjo and dulcimer backing a folksy-sounding but surreal lyric. "Mrs Connor" strays into jazz-balladry, piano-led, as Yester details stark old age. "Rapture" is a highly atmospheric rock waltz with lyrics comparing the magic of love to the moment of death. The upbeat "Charity", sung by Yester to acoustic guitars and powerful vocal harmonies, tells of a sailing ship doomed to sail for ever. Finally the title track, featuring electronically treated vocals and Moog synthesizer
, is a unique piece of "space-rock" based upon an insistent bass-drum, full of rushing, wailing and bleeping sounds as Yester intones "the comets cling to her, the fiery bride, she is the mother of the mark and the prize, the glaze of paradise is in her eyes, her mouth is torn with stars..." before the track fades into chaos.
negative photograph of Henske, Yester, their daughter and cat posed in a garden; the back cover is a color positive of the same picture. The photograph was taken by Ed Caraeff
.
Judy Henske
Judy Henske is an American singer and songwriter, once known as "the Queen of the Beatniks".-Life and recording career:...
and Jerry Yester
Jerry Yester
Jerry Yester is an American folk rock musician, record producer, and arranger.Growing up in Burbank, California, Yester formed a duo with brother Jim Yester, the Yester Brothers, and starting playing folk clubs in Los Angeles in 1960...
is an album issued in 1969 on Frank Zappa
Frank Zappa
Frank Vincent Zappa was an American composer, singer-songwriter, electric guitarist, record producer and film director. In a career spanning more than 30 years, Zappa wrote rock, jazz, orchestral and musique concrète works. He also directed feature-length films and music videos, and designed...
's innovative Straight
Straight Records
Straight Records was a record label formed in 1969 to distribute productions and discoveries of Frank Zappa and his business partner/manager Herb Cohen. Straight was formed at the same time as a companion label, Bizarre Records. Straight and Bizarre were manufactured and distributed in the U.S. by...
record label. It contains a wild mixture of styles, as though recorded by ten different bands, all featuring Henske's almost gothic lyrics and remarkable vocal range, which might lead one to think there were also ten different singers. Instrumentally the songs are held together by Yester's piano. The album, which has achieved a cult following, is also notable for its early use of synthesisers. Although the album got some good reviews it failed to sell in large quantities, purchasers possibly having been driven away by its sheer eclecticism.
Background
Henske and Yester met while working in the West Coast folk scene in the early 1960s, Henske as an uncategorizable solo singer recording folk, blues, jazz and comedy, Yester as a member of the Modern Folk QuartetModern Folk Quartet
The Modern Folk Quartet recorded two albums of folk revival music in the early 1960s, with an emphasis on group harmonies, and have subsequently re-formed more than once and made further recordings....
. They married in 1963. A few years later Henske's career was faltering as a result of ill-advised forays into cabaret while Yester had produced albums by Tim Buckley
Tim Buckley
Timothy Charles Buckley III was an American vocalist, and musician. His music and style changed considerably through the years; his first album was mostly folk oriented, but over time his music incorporated jazz, psychedelia, funk, soul, avant-garde and an evolving "voice as instrument," sound...
and The Association
The Association
The Association is a pop music band from California in the folk rock or soft rock genre. During the 1960s, they had numerous hits at or near the top of the Billboard charts and were the lead-off band at 1967's Monterey Pop Festival...
, and replaced Zal Yanovsky
Zal Yanovsky
Zalman "Zal" Yanovsky was a Canadian rock musician. Born in Toronto, he was the son of political cartoonist Avrom Yanovsky. He played lead guitar and sang for the Lovin' Spoonful, a rock band which he founded with John Sebastian in 1964...
in The Lovin' Spoonful
The Lovin' Spoonful
The Lovin' Spoonful is an American pop rock band of the 1960s, named to the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 2000. When asked about his band, leader John Sebastian said it sounded like a combination of "Mississippi John Hurt and Chuck Berry," prompting his friend, Fritz Richmond, to suggest the name...
.
The pair, with their new-born daughter, moved to Los Angeles in 1968. Henske shared a manager, Herb Cohen
Herb Cohen
Herbert "Herb" Cohen was an American personal manager, record company executive, and music publisher, best known as the manager of Frank Zappa, Tom Waits, and many other Los Angeles-based musicians in the 1960s and 1970s.-Life and career:Cohen was born in New York...
, with Frank Zappa
Frank Zappa
Frank Vincent Zappa was an American composer, singer-songwriter, electric guitarist, record producer and film director. In a career spanning more than 30 years, Zappa wrote rock, jazz, orchestral and musique concrète works. He also directed feature-length films and music videos, and designed...
, who suggested to her that she should put music to some of the verse she was writing. Yester, at this point, was working with Yanovsky on the latter's first solo album, and experimenting with new electronic and other sound effects. The couple combined to put together Farewell Aldebaran, drawing on a varied selection of their musician friends, and it was issued on Zappa and Cohen's new label.
Henske and Yester went on to form a more conventional band, Rosebud
Rosebud (band)
Rosebud was the name of an American popular music group which released a single, eponymous album in 1971.Its members were Judy Henske, Jerry Yester, Craig Doerge, John Seiter, and David Vaught. The album was a follow-up to the Henske-Yester collaboration, Farewell Aldebaran...
, before they went their separate ways at the start of the 1970s. The album was reissued on CD by Radioactive Records http://www.radioactiverecords.com/ in 2005.
Music
The opener, "Snowblind", issued as a single, is a guitar driven rocker that is enough in itself to establish Henske as a peerless rock vocalist and an able, witty lyricist. This is immediately followed by "Horses on a Stick", an almost parodic piece of "sunshine pop", Yester's polka harmonium reminiscent of a fairground steam-organ. Next is the sombre, spacious, marxophoneMarxophone
The Marxophone is a fretless zither that has four sets of chord strings to be strummed with the left hand and two octaves of double melody strings, which are struck by metal hammers activated by the right hand...
-fractured "Lullaby" and then the melodramatic "St. Nicholas Hall", its satirical anti-clerical lyrics matched by choral samples from the Chamberlin
Chamberlin
The Chamberlin is an electro-mechanical keyboard instrument that was a precursor to the Mellotron. It was developed and patented by Iowa, Wisconsin inventor Harry Chamberlin from 1949 to 1956, when the first model was introduced. Various models and versions of these Chamberlin music instruments...
keyboard. "Three Ravens", a sublime slice of baroque pop
Baroque pop
Baroque pop, Baroque rock, or English baroque, often used interchangeably with chamber pop/rock, is a pop and rock music subgenre which originated in the mid-1960s in the United Kingdom and United States...
, fully orchestrated, based upon a Scottish folk lyric, is especially revered.
"Raider", which has been described as an "acid sea shanty", has a bluegrass feel created by bowed banjo and dulcimer backing a folksy-sounding but surreal lyric. "Mrs Connor" strays into jazz-balladry, piano-led, as Yester details stark old age. "Rapture" is a highly atmospheric rock waltz with lyrics comparing the magic of love to the moment of death. The upbeat "Charity", sung by Yester to acoustic guitars and powerful vocal harmonies, tells of a sailing ship doomed to sail for ever. Finally the title track, featuring electronically treated vocals and Moog synthesizer
Moog synthesizer
Moog synthesizer may refer to any number of analog synthesizers designed by Dr. Robert Moog or manufactured by Moog Music, and is commonly used as a generic term for older-generation analog music synthesizers. The Moog company pioneered the commercial manufacture of modular voltage-controlled...
, is a unique piece of "space-rock" based upon an insistent bass-drum, full of rushing, wailing and bleeping sounds as Yester intones "the comets cling to her, the fiery bride, she is the mother of the mark and the prize, the glaze of paradise is in her eyes, her mouth is torn with stars..." before the track fades into chaos.
Album cover
The album cover is a solarisedSolarisation
Solarisation is a phenomenon in photography in which the image recorded on a negative or on a photographic print is wholly or partially reversed in tone. Dark areas appear light or light areas appear dark...
negative photograph of Henske, Yester, their daughter and cat posed in a garden; the back cover is a color positive of the same picture. The photograph was taken by Ed Caraeff
Ed Caraeff
Ed Caraeff is a photographer, illustrator and graphic designer, who has worked largely in the music industry. He has art directed, photographed and designed hundreds of record album covers from 1967 to 1982 for numerous artists, including Elton John, Carly Simon, Three Dog Night and Dolly Parton...
.
Track listing
All lyrics by Judy Henske, music by Jerry Yester; except where indicated- "Snowblind" (Henske, Yester, Zal YanovskyZal YanovskyZalman "Zal" Yanovsky was a Canadian rock musician. Born in Toronto, he was the son of political cartoonist Avrom Yanovsky. He played lead guitar and sang for the Lovin' Spoonful, a rock band which he founded with John Sebastian in 1964...
) - 3:07 - "Horses on a Stick" - 2:10
- "Lullaby" - 2:55
- "St. Nicholas Hall" - 3:35
- "Three Ravens" - 3:30
- "Raider" - 5:12
- "Mrs. Connor" - 2:17 (also listed as "One More Time")
- "Rapture" - 4:09
- "Charity" - 3:17
- "Farewell Aldebaran" - 4:21
Personnel http://www.tctv.ne.jp/m-site/jerryyester/JHJY6901.html
- Larry BeckettLarry BeckettLarry Beckett is a poet and songwriter, best known for his collaborations with Tim Buckley in the late-1960s.-Early life:...
- drums (track 1) - Ry CooderRy CooderRyland Peter "Ry" Cooder is an American guitarist, singer and composer. He is known for his slide guitar work, his interest in roots music from the United States, and, more recently, his collaborations with traditional musicians from many countries.His solo work has been eclectic, encompassing...
- mandolin ? (6? - credited in Unterberger's book but not by Yester) - John Forsha - 12 string guitar (2,5,9)
- Toxie French - drums (6,7,10)
- Judy Henske - vocals
- Eddie Hoh - drums (2,9)
- Bernie KrauseBernie KrauseBernard L. Krause is an American musician, soundscape recordist and bio-acoustician, who coined the term biophony and helped define the structure of soundscape ecology. Krause holds a Ph.D. in bioacoustics from Union Institute & University in Cincinnati.-Biography:Bernie Krause was born in 1938...
- Moog synthesizer programming (10) - David LindleyDavid Lindley (musician)David Perry Lindley is an American musician who is notable for his work with Jackson Browne, Warren Zevon, and other rock musicians. He has worked extensively in other genres as well, performing with artists as varied as Curtis Mayfield and Dolly Parton...
- bowed banjo (6) - "David's friend" (Solomon Feldthouse ?) - hammer dulcimer (6)
- Joe OsbornJoe OsbornJoe Osborn is an American bass guitar virtuoso, notable for his work as a session musician in Los Angeles and Nashville during the period from the 1960s through the 1980s. Osborn's work is widely admired by fellow musicians.Osborn began his career working in local clubs, then played on a hit...
- bass (2,9) - Dick Rossmini - guitar (2,9)
- Jerry ScheffJerry ScheffJerry Obern Scheff is an American bassist, perhaps best known for his work with Elvis Presley in the early 1970s as a member of his TCB Band and his work on The Doors' final recordings....
- bass (6) - Zal YanovskyZal YanovskyZalman "Zal" Yanovsky was a Canadian rock musician. Born in Toronto, he was the son of political cartoonist Avrom Yanovsky. He played lead guitar and sang for the Lovin' Spoonful, a rock band which he founded with John Sebastian in 1964...
- bass (1,10), guitar (1,10) - Jerry Yester - vocals, guitar (1,2,8,10), piano (2,3,4,5,6,7,8,9,10), harmonium (2), toy zither (3), Marxophone (3), Chamberlain Tape Organ (4), orchestra (5,10), organ (7,8), banjo (8), bass (10), Moog synthesizer (10)
- Produced by Yester/Yanovsky for Hairshirt Productions
- Recorded at Sunwest Studios - Hollywood
- Recorded and Mixed by Gary Brandt - except Farewell Aldebaran: mixed by John Boylan
- Executive Producer: Herb CohenHerb CohenHerbert "Herb" Cohen was an American personal manager, record company executive, and music publisher, best known as the manager of Frank Zappa, Tom Waits, and many other Los Angeles-based musicians in the 1960s and 1970s.-Life and career:Cohen was born in New York...
- Cover Photo by Ed Caraeff
- Special Effects: by Litholab
- Album design by John Williams