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ISLE OF VIEW

THE DRAGON IS DANCING

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Chosen for Jimmie Spheeris’s first album jacket was a late-career illustration by Gustave Doré (1832–1883) commissioned for British and French editions of the sixteenth-century epic poem Orlando Furioso by Ludovico Ariosto (1474–1533). Spheeris found it in an antique shop even after he’d commissioned the cover art to his friend Ingo Swann, as explained on JimmieSpheeris.com.

A couple of Goodreads reviews of Orlando Furioso (Orlando Enraged) hint at the appeal of its 38,736 lines across its forty-six cantos. David writes: “Like King Arthur meets Arrested Development. A surprisingly exciting, original, kalidescopically plotted poem with ideas regarding gender and race that might be considered progressive by even today’s standards.” Author J. G. Keely talks of a work that “is constantly shifting, so that now one side seems right and now the other” with a style that “flies on wings, lilting here and there, darting, soaring.” He could have been describing Opus 1 of Penelope Spheeris (discussed below) or that of her brother (Isle of View), or the fabulous creature in Doré’s illustration.

Ruggiero, pictured by Doré atop that creature, is described as being the son of the king of Africa’s Muslim daughter and a Christian knight. He and his twin sister Marfisa were born after the murder of their father. The hybrid quadruped that Ruggiero rides is described in a non-literal English rendition as a griffin born to a “filly”: a hippogryph (Canto 4: XVIII). If this sounds like a grotesque disaster, Ariosto declaims (Canto 6: XVIII, again in that non-literal rendering of the original):

Jimmie (James) Spheeris was born in Phenix City, Alabama, to Juanita 'Gypsy' and Andrew Spheeris, who owned and operated a traveling carnival called the Majick Empire. These childhood years of colorful transience were a major influence on later work, as evidenced in songs such as "Lost in the Midway" and "Decatur Street," among others.
Spheeris had two sisters, Penelope and Linda, and a brother, Andy. After his father was murdered by a "belligerent carnival-goer, Gypsy Spheeris moved the family to San Diego, California. The family eventually settled in Venice, California. Gypsy Spheeris tended bar at an establishment on Main Street called The Circle.
Spheeris moved to New York City in the late 1960s to pursue his songwriting career. The liner notes on his debut album credit friend and fellow songwriter Richie Havens, who introduced Spheeris to Columbia Records executive Clive Davis. Davis signed Spheeris to a four album recording contract and his debut album was released on the Columbia label.
Spheeris' 1972 debut album, Isle of View, garnered a devoted following and FM radio airplay, most notably for the song "I Am the Mercury." His 1973 album, The Original Tap Dancing Kid, was followed by a period of extensive concert touring. Spheeris returned to the recording studio in 1975 with The Dragon is Dancing and released Ports of the Heart in 1976. After Ports of the Heart, Spheeris had no recording contract. Except for a 1980 single, "Hold Tight," Spheeris released no new material through a major record label.
Spheeris died at the age of 34 in Santa Monica, California, when his motorcycle collided with a van at 2 a.m. on the morning of July 4, 1984. The driver of the van, Bruce Burnside, was charged with driving under the influence of alcohol and felony vehicular manslaughter.[5] Hours before his death, Spheeris finished the self-titled album, Spheeris, which was produced by Paul Delph. This final album was not publicly released for 16 years. Delph would later record two of Spheeris' songs for his final album A God That Can Dance.
A song on Spheeris' final album entitled "You Must Be Laughing Somewhere" is based on the life of his friend, author John Kennedy Toole (whose novel, A Confederacy of Dunces, was posthumously awarded the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction in 1981).
In 1998, independent record label Rain Records began re-releasing Spheeris' catalog on CD, but stopped production in 2001 following the cancellation of a music licensing contract with Sony Music Special Products (owner of Spheeris’ catalog).

ABOUT JIMMIE FROM WIKIPEDIA

TATTOO DONE BY LYLE TUTTLE

JIMMIES LAST KNOWN STUDIO  ALBUM.

2020-04-09 BY DAVID HUGHES

Left the Nest: Jimmie and Penelope Spheeris

Years ago I was surprised when my brother Richard told me that filmmaker Penelope Spheeris was singer-songwriter Jimmie Spheeris’s sister. She: creator of The Decline of Western Civilization, the punk rock doc I saw only last night, tho’ I saw the bands she shot. He: creator of ethereal ballads I found amongst my brother’s LPs when I returned home to Boulder from Los Angeles in the ’70s while he was living abroad.

At some point Richard turned me on to Jimmie’s “Decatur Street,” from his eponymously-titled album released in 2000, long after his death in 1984 at age 34. After completing that album’s final mix on July 4 he was hit by a drunk driver while riding home on his Vespa. The setting of his song is in the city of his sister Penelope’s birth. A tourism website describes it like this:

Basically a waterfront strip, the French Quarter part of Decatur Street has catered to sailors and hosted the kinds of businesses a big port would have. By the 80s it still retained its port feel, especially in the Lower Decatur near Canal Street, but the part closer to Esplanade and Frenchmen Street became a bohemian haven with a vibrant goth and punk scene.

The kind of scene Penelope documented. But perhaps not the scene Jimmie’s fans would associate with him and his music, particularly the four albums he issued between 1971 and 1976.

Had I been inclined, in 2010 I could have been re-introduced to Jimmie Spheeris via John Grant’s first solo album, Queen of Denmark. As the story goes, after leaving his Denver band The Czars in 2004 Grant languished (and got clean) but kept writing. The Texas band Midlake had channeled Spheeris on their The Trials of Van Occupanther (2006) and apparently recognized something Jimmie in John’s voice. They approached Grant and offered to back him. Having read this at the time, I never bothered to do a comparison and, frankly, hadn’t listened to Queen of Denmark for years before writing this post. Setting Spheeris’s and Grant’s debuts’ opening songs side by side, the sonic resemblance is unmistakeable. This is echoed by what I found while writing this post:

You know how people cleverly say, “Why, they broke the mold when they made so-and-so,” by which you infer that so-and-so was one of a kind? I always thought that about the late, very great Jimmie Spheeris, whose “The Dragon is Dancing” is one of those magical albums I’ll drag into the beyond when they break my mold. Here’s the thing, though, listening to John Grant’s new CD, “Queen of Denmark,” and the single “TC and Honeybear,” it’s spookily like Jimmie has returned to us.1

I’d completely forgotten the acoustic quality of Grant’s arrangements on that first CD, especially the flute; it is spooky, the semblance.2 And I hadn’t remembered how Grant mimicked Spheeris’s double-tracked vocals, which must have sounded so fresh in 1971; recently I’d been comparing the doubling effect with that of another debut track, in the chorus of Duncan Sheik’s “She Runs Away” (1996). With Midlake, it’s not on their debut; you have to wait until “Bandits,” track 2 of their second album Occupanther, to hear the same technique. Here’s “The Nest,” track 1 from Spheeris’s debut Isle of View, followed by the others.

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JIMMIES THIRD ALBUM

LOOKING FORWARD TO DOING THIS PAGE!!

JIMMIE SPHEERIS AUTOGRAPHED PHOTO TAKEN ON DECEMBER 5TH, 1978 AT THE MYRIAD CONVENTION CENTER IN OKLAHOMA CITY.

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MIDLAKE'S ALBUM, THE TRIALS OF VAN OCCUPANTHER IN ITS ENTIRETY

​THANK YOU SO VERY MUCH TO HOPE AND HER WEBSITE "PICKING UP ROCKS"!! IT IS A TREASURE TROVE OF FANTASTIC MUSINGS ABOUT MUSIC FEW OF US ARE PRIVY TO!!!