The Rainy Daze broke up following several post-LP singles on the Turtles' label, White Whale. Carter and Gilbert, meanwhile, had written an entire album, and now needed a band to record it. With Diamond, they held auditions and ultimately assembled Dave Torbert on bass, Scott Quigley and Matt Kelly on guitars, Chris Herold on drums, and lead singer Rich Fifield. Fifield was replaced midway through the recording sessions with an unknown 18-year-old kid, Don Johnson, in his first professional gig. The resultant, self-titled album was a strong effort, mixing tongue-in-cheek counterculturalisms (Class of '69 was a carefully couched song about a sex act) and hippie-fied country elements into its hard rock, but also, unfortunately, came out on White Whale just at the moment that the label was beginning to come undone. (It was reissued on CD by Gear Fab in 2003.) Horses did not last far into 1970, though two of its songs, Overnight Bag and Asia Minor, had a second life with Kingfish, who recorded them on their first LP. Kingfish, incidentally, were founded by Herold and Torbert (who also later joined New Riders of the Purple Sage) along with the Grateful Dead's Bob Weir in 1975. Kelly, too, later guested on several Dead albums in the '70s, and released a pair of solo albums on the group's Relix label. He had also been in the band Gospel Oak, which recorded a 1970 LP. Quigley later played with the Sammy Hagar Band before perishing from a drug overdose. Gilbert went on to record a pair of singles under his own name, while Carter, in addition to continuing to contribute songs to other artists, became a top producer for Capitol Records, working with the Motels, Bob Welch, and Tina Turner (the international hit Private Dancer). Diamond continued as an ace radio DJ, and also became a successful novelist. Johnson, of course, became a worldwide superstar as a film and television actor, most memorably in the iconic '80s cop series #Miami Vice. ~ Stanton Swihart, Rovi
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Cheyenne |
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Horseradish |
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Country Boy |