Hey, remember when there was that pandemic? When everything was dark and scary, and we were actually in a lockdown and unable to go about our daily lives? As I’m writing this, the omicron wave that infected more people than any other variant, including people who were vaccinated and taking precautions, has just settled down such that new case numbers nationally are below a year ago, which was pre-vax. Locally the case rate is half what it was a year ago – but just a few weeks ago it was astronomically higher, because people were acting like it was over and going about life with hope that the vaccine or dumb luck would be protection enough. During that spike, we personally went into a bit of a second lockdown, limiting our out-of-the-house activities. But for the most part people were out and about. And that was in striking contrast to a year before, when we had just been through the winter of 2020/21, stuck alone in our homes, waiting for the relief that would come with a vaccine.
Getting through those dark, cold months of isolation, fear and real hardship was a serious struggle. We had COVID in the house (fortunately, without spreading it). We were trying to take care of an elder parent who was isolated in an assisted living facility that we couldn’t visit for long periods of time. Even just getting groceries was tense, and there were times when we couldn’t even do that and had to rely on ordering online.
During that time, it seemed like the whole world turned to Zoom and other conferencing services to host various types of meetings and performances, just to get a little bit of human connection going. Musicians, in particular, turned to Zoom, Facebook live, and YouTube to put a little bit of joy into the world, to make a little connection. While I took huge solace in one big national version of that, the broadcasts from Jorma Kaukonen at his Fur Peace Ranch, for the most part I focused on listening to musicians I knew personally. When someone like Phoenixville’s Cliff Hillis or Philly’s John Faye were doing an online show, it was as close to getting together with our friends as we could get – even just seeing our neighbors popping up in the chat was a thrill. There was a message and a feeling – hey, we’re all still here, we’re all in this together.
Two good friends of ours, Anna Spackman Cephas and Shawn Cephas, put on a weekly Saturday night show through much of that winter, and I can’t say how important it was to us to see them, hear their voices, get to join in the chat with our other friends, and feel as close to gathering in their living room as was possible. They also turned it into a lovely effort to improve the world, each week spotlighting some different local charity that was doing something important – several of which have continued to receive our support.
At some point – at several points, really – Anna and Shawn said that they had become enamored of this 1971 album by Dave Mason and Cass Elliot, that its Laurel Canyon vibe was getting them through. When things started to open back up, and Shawn was able to bring back his pop-up record shop, he had a copy of this in the bins and, given the high praise they had given it, I didn’t hesitate. And it became an instant classic in our house. This album is really a mood. It’s not that any of the individual songs or lyrics stand out for me – it’s just evocative and easy to listen to. Easy, free, beautiful vocals, simple structures, and some of the cleanest guitar ever. Cass isn’t even really at the forefront of most of the tracks – almost an odd choice given the power of her voice – but it creates an overall softer, dreamier effect than what was then being foisted on her in her solo career.
I’ve already written about The Mamas and the Papas, and their somewhat limited appeal to me – an appeal that was definitely damaged later by really learning of John Phillips’s horribleness. The songs became impossible to listen to for some time. And I’ve discussed with these same friends the absolutely horrific treatment of Cass Elliot in the media in her day – it’s absolutely mystifying that it was considered perfectly okay to talk about her in terms of nothing but her weight, constantly, to her face. What a horrible thing to have to put up with. Here was one of the finest pop singers on the planet, an incomparable voice and apparently a beautiful human being, and every TV appearance seemed to have some comment on her size. It was unseemly even in the ’70s, which is saying something.
But here, there’s just a sweet, easy sounding collaboration, and during the pandemic, it was precisely what we needed to hear.
By the way, Dave Mason, probably most famous as a member of Traffic, and whose career has been all over the place, is still out and performing. Some folks we know, in the Troy band Super 400, just opened for him in a performance up that way.
