Better pick a good song this week, or I may end up in the stew…
Need a vacation from the start of another dull week? Well, forget Calgon, let The Nest take you away! It’s Monday, and that’s the day we unpack another great song that got lost in transit out from that giant luggage carousel of sweet music we like to call the Dusty Vinyl Archive! DJ Scratchy is more than happy to be your travel agent on this fantastic voyage to the good old days of 45’s, while the Sponkies whine about why we’re not going to Disneyland instead. Let’s pop in the mix tape and get this road trip started…
If you turned on your handy dandy little portable AM radio at some point in the 1970’s, there was a pretty good chance you’d hear a tune by a singer/songwriter who was doomed to become a one hit wonder and whose name would get lost in the sea of largely anonymous artists who’d be long forgotten about once MTV started putting faces to music in the 80’s. Someone like, oh, this guy….
Ah, the 70’s. Maybe the worst decade in fashion history…
Jay Ferguson knew he wanted to be a musician from a young age, and was in a number of obscure bands from his teenage years through his 20’s. His first gig was playing the banjo in a bluegrass group called The Oat Hill Stump Straddlers, and you know a group by that name just had to have a washboard player as well. Lucky for us, by the time Ferguson saw his only taste of pop success, he was on his own and no longer playing the damned banjo. In 1978, Jay invited us to spend some time on a tropical island with a charming beauty…
Incidentally, that’s The Eagles’ Joe Walsh on banjo guitar in this song!
“Thunder Island” was a #9 hit in the US, and while Ferguson would crack the Top 40 with another song later, it’s really all he’s remembered for…. at least from a pop music perspective. After washing up on the shore with his shirt undone as a rock artist, he got into scoring films and TV shows, writing the theme song for the US version of “The Office.” This surprised me as I had no idea TV shows even had theme songs anymore in an age when intros and credit rolls on TV usually get squashed into small split screens simultaneously to save time for more fucking commercials…
Remember when the opening and ending credits of TV shows were as fun as the shows themselves?
Come back next Monday for more music that got lost in paradise…
Evil Squirrel's Nest 
I actually remember this song but it wasn’t so memorable that I knew who sang it! Recognized the Joe Walsh touches though. There sure have been a good sized crop of one-hitters since the 70s.
Pam
I had no idea Joe Walsh did the guitar here, but now that I know that, I can certainly hear his sound!
Grooving to Thunder Island!
This was another one of those tunes that made for great cruising time back when it was popular. I had no idea who the artist was but always enjoyed this song. Happy Monday.
I don’t remember the song but I do remember sitting by the radio with a cassette recorder desperately trying to record my favourite songs!
I did that back in the 80’s! Got more of the DJ’s yakking than actual music though!
I don’t remember this song, and am busily trying to forget it right now…
I wish you the best of luck in your endeavo(u)r!