. . . and the streets are ours. While I'm glad Eddie Vedder rescued Big Hard Sun from oblivion--and while he does a very nice job of it--I think the original Gordon Peterson (a/k/a Indio) version is better. What do you think?
I first heard this song back in 1990 on WBOS, but I'd have been at a loss to tell you who sung it. Here's Marc Hirsch's take on Peterson's one and only album:
Indio, Big Harvest (A&M, 1989)
You are not Peter Gabriel or Paul Simon, but you have an abiding love for the music of non-Western cultures and a wealth of industry contacts (including a bunch of session pros and, astoundingly, Joni Mitchell). You also have the crazy idea that maybe, just maybe, it is possible to make an actual rock album incorporating nontraditional instruments that doesn't ignore, patronize or insult the sources. What do you do? If your name is Gordon Peterson, you made your single shot (before vanishing completely) a spectacular one, writing fully realized songs about love and life and layering them with instrumental textures that scare the hell out of the little kids and confuse the grownups, ensuring that your one brilliant statement became anti-pigeonholed straight into oblivion. You can still sleep nights with the satisfaction of a job well done.
Today there is still no entry for Gordon Peterson on Wikipedia and his album goes for $99.99 used at Amazon.com.
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