The odd trajectory of this feature continues with it being published on Wednesday afternoon, not morning. Wednesday Addams had nothing to do with it.
I’ve been catching up on the Antiques Roadshow. A recent episode from a swanky estate in Woodside, CA had a segment about Mickey Hart and this album. Hence this post.
The Rhythm Devils were a drum ensemble featuring Grateful Dead drummers Mickey Hart and Bill Kreutzmann as well as the Brazilian percussion genius Airto Moreira. I’m too lazy to type the other names but the credits can be found at Discogs.
The album’s Wikipedia entry does a good job of telling how this album came to be recorded, so I’ll let them do it:
After attending a Grateful Dead concert, director Francis Ford Coppola asked Mickey Hart and Bill Kreutzmann to record drum music for his film Apocalypse Now, much of which takes place along a river in the jungle during the Vietnam War. Hart and Kreutzmann, along with seven other musicians, assembled many different drums and other percussion instruments at the Club Front recording studio in San Rafael, California. While a rough cut of the movie was screened, they improvised the music, some of which ended up being used on the final soundtrack.[2][3] The recording sessions took place over a period of ten days. Selections from the sessions were remixed and assembled into the final album.[4]
Francis is a Deadhead? Cool. I thought he was strictly a wine guy. You learn something new every day.
The cover art is by the great Stanley Mouse:
I dig drumming skeletons. I bet Brando did too. I’m less certain about Martin Sheen.
Here’s the whole damn album via the YouTube:
In ’69 I was reading Rolling Stone and for $10 you could buy 5 SF posters ( Fillmore, Avalon, etc) one of them being a Stanley Mouse. When I left for college my parents cleared my room.
I still have my first issue Crumb comics though
Rob