Tuesday, June 21, 2005

sky - sailor's delight

i saw a post on 'good rockin' tonight' about the knack, ya know, those 'my sharona' guys. i love the knack, the whole beatlesque attitude thing they had going and my lil sis was bonkers for them, i remember her acting knack-maniac when we took her to see them open for the kinks in'79. they were such a teenybopper band, but the songs rocked.
when i found out doug fieger was the leader of the band i started digging in the archives. he was also in a band called 'sky'. i had bought their 1971 lp 'sailor's delight' right around the time i got 'muswell hillbillies' and 'bangla desh'. i got it mainly because it was produced by jimmy miller with andy johns on the board, had ian stewart on piano and used bobby keys and jim price on horns. that just so happened to be the backing line-up for the best set of rolling stones records at the time, ('let it bleed', 'sticky fingers', and the soon to be released 'exile on main st.'). see, this was back in the day when i would buy a record just for the cover, and just loved it when it turned out to be great.
when i listened to it i was blown away. i played it over and over, front to back, made tapes of it for friends and generally spread the word, (it's that good a record).
i never heard from them again, (they broke up just after the release of 'sailor's delight'), and they kinda faded from memory, except the 'sailor's delight' lp, which would always sound fresh when i'd slap it on the turntable.
it is nothing like the knack material. the songs are varied from the stripped down rock of 'make it tight' to caribbean ballads and wonderful epics like 'lowdown', it is a brilliant record, the production is super clean and the songs are very well written and concise. unfortunately, it is unavailable on cd, and it is not even listed in ebay on vinyl, (i prolly have one of the few remaining copies, that sucks, mine is worn and scratchy, this needs to come out on cd!).
so i dusted off my sky lp, ripped and cleaned it up and dumped these wondeful 'lil pieces of bric-a-brac here for your consideration.

the best of the very-hard-to-find 'sailor's delight' lp in mp3 (via yousendit):
bring it on back
lowdown
make it tight
let it lie low

9 comments:

homercat said...

Thanks a ton for this post. I've been curious ever since your comment on my knack post and I've grabbed them up and can't wait to listen to these tracks. Back in the 70's I used to buy albums from bands I never heard if I thought the album cover was cool. I found a lot of good stuff that way and it seems I wasn't the only one.

homercat from Good Rockin' Tonight

sleepybomb said...

great! i love to infect others with stuff they didn't know about but knew they would love! we need to start a petition to rca, get this out on cd!
if ya'll want the whole thing i can zap it to ya via yousendit. . . lemme know.

sleepybomb said...

ok, go wait by the mailbox, it'll be there soon.

Snave said...

Thanks for the tip, Sleepy! I'll definitely check these guys out!

Anonymous said...

Hey!
I stumbled upon this deal on the band "Sky" and I was blown away. It is one of my all-time favorite albums and I have been looking for the MP3's to download to no avail. I clicked on your links but yousendit tells me that its not available, etc. Is there any way you could send them again?

Stone said...

i just found a mint copy of skys first album dont hold back its really good and i cant find it anywhere online, ill rip it and trade you the mp3s for your ripped copy of sailors delight...

youknowstone@gmail.com

knownote said...

If anyone would like to contribute either of Sky's LP's to my power pop blog, we could make this available to many others and give it a web presence. My blog is http://powerpopulation.blogspot.com

Or you can e-mail me links at knownote@yahoo.com

Thanks,

Anonymous said...

I have been looking Everywhere for the MP3: "Sky: Let It Lie Low". Your Blog is one of the only search results I found (Sky Album)=Sailor's Delight). Do you know where I can Download/Buy just this MP3? Thanks For Your Assistance. The Link on your site no longer works. Thanks. PS Can not find on this blog how to contact You. Thanks Again...

Anonymous said...

Hey - I've been looking for Sky: Sailor's Delight LP rip. The links are dead - anyone have it? Would greatly appreciate it. Thanks bunches!

Dan