Well, now that you've (hopefully) made your way through the entire Fohhoh Bohob story, it seems entirely appropriate to let you actually get an idea of what the album sounds like. This section contains MP3 sound bites for all of the tracks on the reissue of Fohhoh Bohob (LP, single and CD); This will give you a taste, at least.
[Note: If, for some reason, the individual embedded MP3 player controls below each song don't appear or work correctly in your particular browser, you can still click on any song title to hear a soundbite with the QuickTime player.]
Fittingly, I believe that this was the first song we recorded for Bohob. My main memory of the session was that it was done on one of those incredibly hot dog days of July; so hot, in fact, that all three of us performed the basic track in our underwear! That's quite a vision, isn't it? I also remember having an incredibly red and painful left hand after laying down the tambourine part.
Here's a real rarity...while looking through a pile of tapes, I found this alternate version of Flower with a different lead vocal (was I really that adenoidal back then?), which I believe to be the only alternate track available for any song on Fohhoh Bohob. Why? Because we could barely afford the tape to record in the first place, so if we didn't like a take, we just recorded over it. I guess we were torn over the two Flower versions, but in the end, although the differences are subtle, I think we made the right choice. This is the whole song, by the way, not just a clip. Paul D'Alton: drums, cowbell
Jonathan Tuttle: piano, acoustic 6-string guitar
Eric Bergman: bass, tambourine, vocal
This was always one of Jon's personal favorites. We had recorded various versions earlier in 1969, but I feel that this one really captured it's beauty and poignancy most successfully. I remember Jon playing it for me on his 12-string in his backyard one lovely spring day in 1969; that's what I recall whenever I listen to Nostalgia Trip. Jonathan Tuttle: piano, acoustic 6-string and 12-string guitars, vocal
Eric Bergman: tambourine, autoharp
You can really hear the engineering influence of the Who's Sell Out and Tommy on this track. I loved the effect of having double-tracked drums on the left and right channels, and this was the first instance in which we incorporated it. The Sony TC-255 we used for the final mixdown deck had two incredibly small stereo recording volume controls right next to each other set in a sunken compartment which made fading the long ending evenly a rather daunting task. Perseverance won out. Paul D'Alton: drums
Jonathan Tuttle: piano, electric 6-string and 12-string guitars, vocal
Eric Bergman: bass, tambourine, vocal
The Patron Saints in Arlo Guthrie mode. Most people find it hard to believe that the piano used on this track is the same piano used on The Goodnight Song. Well, the same Baldwin AcroSonic piano was used on all of the tracks on Bohob. To get the honk-tonk sound here, we spent a great deal of time putting thumb tacks on every hammer in the piano! Thank God the D'Altons weren't home to witness it. The bizarre effect at the end was made by first turning off the power during mixdown, and then splicing on an ending where the power was turned on during recording. What can I tell you? It was the sixties. I could play banjo a little, but Jon didn't play at all. That didn't stop him; he merely tuned it like a guitar! The "12-gauge shotgun" was, in fact, a heavily reverb-laden Sony F-96 microphone being struck by a hammer at the appropriate time by pal (future Patron Saint drummer and later original drummer for Garrison) Joe Ivins. So much for gun control. Paul D'Alton: drums, tambourine, mike stand, lampshade
Jonathan Tuttle: tack-piano, acoustic 6-string guitar, banjo, vocal
Eric Bergman: acoustic 12-string guitar, bass, vocal
The first song I ever wrote. Completed, anyway. Over the years, many people have asked me about the "acid references" in it (White Light, Capped Blue, etc.). It's a lot more innocent than that. It was written for a girl whose last name happened to be White, and she used to wear a blue cap. Another track with the stereo double-drumming effect. Now that a remarkably clean reissue is available, you can actually hear birds chirping at the fade-out! It was, after all, recorded in a living room...
Paul D'Alton: drums
Jonathan Tuttle: piano, acoustic 6-string guitar, autoharp
Eric Bergman: acoustic 12-string guitar, bass, vocal
I didn't even know this existed...in my search for rare and/or cool things for the website, I found a tape of me writing and working out the various sections of White Light on Jon's Hofner 173ii, probably in late December, 1968. It's pretty crude, but if you're familiar with the song, you'll probably enjoy hearing how it was created. Following that section is a little three-part guitar recording I made of one of the main themes to see what it might sound like.
Another rare find. This clip is me (12-string), my always-supportive brother, Tom (recorder) and Jon (piano) actually learning and arranging White Light together for the first time, well before the first demo was recorded in 1969.
The only song on Bohob with a free-form, spontaneous section in it. Jon's guitar/piano work is inspired; I believe this may have been the first song that Jon ever wrote. I have another version of Relax (as well as most of the other songs on Bohob) from early 1969 that we may release in the future. Paul D'Alton: drums, tambourine
Jonathan Tuttle: piano, electric 6-string guitar, vocal
Eric Bergman: bass, fuzz bass, percussion, vocal
Jon wrote this love song for a girl in his neighborhood who happened to have an absurdly strict father. He meant every word of it, too. Jon even went so far as to put her initials in the "You Know That I Love You" section (i.e. "D.C., I Love You") when he first played it for us. Thankfully, we talked him out of it. I defy anyone to emulate the strumming Jon employs here. What a wrist! My main contribution to My Lonely Friend was "playing" the reverb unit while Jon performed; you can hear it 'breathing' rhythmically. Paul was out carousing; it was summer, after all! Jonathan Tuttle: acoustic 12-string guitar, electric 6-string guitar, tambourine, vocal
Yes, there was a real Andrea. She was also the 'flower' in Flower. She also snuck into White Light somehow, as well. All of the songs on Bohob were written within a particular window of time in early 1969, hence the 'limited' subject matter! The original version of Andrea was recorded with just an acoustic 12-string, a far cry from the 'produced' version here. Paul's drumming adds so much; I just wished I'd backed off with the tambourine in the middle part! Oh, well. Paul D'Alton: drums
Jonathan Tuttle: piano, acoustic 6-string guitar, electric 6-string guitar
Eric Bergman: acoustic 12-string guitar, bass, tambourine, vocal
Most people don't realize that Jon had only been playing piano for about two years when we recorded Bohob. He really was incredibly gifted. It's tough for me to listen to this song today; a few years after Bohob was recorded, Jon began to exhibit the symptoms of schizophrenia, which he suffered with until the end of his life in June of 1994. In The Goodnight Song, it seems as though he knew something was happening to him...he just didn't know what.
A number of astute fans have noticed that the section at the end which presents all of the song endings spliced together contains two endings which aren't on Bohob! True enough...when we first sequenced the final album, it had eleven songs on it, not nine. Unfortunately, due to time limitations, they wouldn't all fit comfortably on the LP. We were forced to remove two cuts, and then re-sequence the remaining tracks. The long-lost tracks, Shine On Heart and Do You Think About Me?(Live) are now being released on the Bohob reissue LP and CD, respectively. If you follow the sequence of edits at the end of The Goodnight Song, you can see what the original track sequence was because the song was finished before the resequencing was! It was originally Flower, Nostalgia Trip, Reflections On A Warm Day, Relax, Do You Think About Me?, White Light, Shine On Heart, My Lonely Friend, Andrea, Do You Think About Me?(Live) and The Goodnight Song. Another mystery unraveled!
I'm often asked if there is an existing version of The Goodnight Song without the final "montage" edits mentioned above in it. Well, until now, there hasn't been...the precision of digital editing has allowed me to seamlessly removed those edits and present the full song, for the first time, as it was originally recorded. I'm sure Jon would have approved...
Jonathan Tuttle: piano, acoustic 12-string guitar, acoustic 6-string guitar, vocal
My one big Bohob regret was in not being able to include Shine On Heart on the original album (see The Goodnight Song above). It's always been one of my favorite tracks, but at about seven minutes, it was way too long to use and still incorporate a varied mix of other songs on the LP. So we compromised: we cut one of Jon's songs and we cut one of mine. Almost thirty years later, you can finally hear the whole thing in glorious full-dimensional stereophonic sound! The Bohob reissue contains a bonus single which includes Shine On Heart and Do It Together. The 30-second sound bite offered here has the end of a killer solo by Jon with part of the chorus. You'll get the idea. Paul D'Alton: drums
Jonathan Tuttle: piano, electric 6-string guitar, vocal
Eric Bergman: bass, maracas, vocal
This was a number that Jon and I recorded late one night when Paul was out galavanting. I don't believe we envisioned it making it on to the album; we just wanted to record everything we had written up to that point. As you can see from the instrument listing below, we used all sorts of "found" percussion, with Paul's empty drum cases passing as tablas! I think we called them "clay drums" on the liner notes, but they were drum cases as far as I can recall. They didn't really sound too bad, either.
Jonathan Tuttle: acoustic 12-string guitar, electric guitar, drum cases, cowbell, vocal
Eric Bergman: bass, woodblock, washboard, vocal
Jon recorded this live version of Do You Think About Me? at a Byram Hills High School (Armonk, NY) concert on Thursday, February 6, 1969. He also performed Shine On Heart, but over the years, the tape has been lost. It was the first time that either of our songs had been performed in public and it was quite a thrill for both of us. It was the audience's positive reaction at this concert which gave us the confidence we needed in order to conceive of and create Fohhoh Bohob later that year.
