Hey folks, here’s yet another new feature on Robert Frost’s Banjo—well, sorta new & sorta old, actually. I’ve decided to feature one song per month from the recorded output of our old & beloved Alice in Wonder Band, which Eberle & I were involved with from its inception in 2001 until its demise in 2004. I’ve written quite a bit about the Alice in Wonder Band here on the Banjo—if you’re interested in learning more, you can either search “Alice in Wonder Band” on the blog, or check out the label “our music” (the latter will bring up some posts that aren’t about the Wonder band, however).
Eberle wrote the music & most of the words for “Elephant Cloudland” in 2003—I added a few words here & there where she was stuck, but most of the lyrics are hers. We began performing the song later that year, & it was always a favorite. Slow & dreamy was probably what the Alice in Wonder Band did best, so this was one of our better numbers.
In 2004, we recorded nine songs—eight in the chapel at Marymount Hermitage, thanks to the generosity of the Sisters, & one back at home. Joshua Housh & Dani Leone drove up from the Bay Area to work as producer/sound guy & assistant to same respectively. The personnel on this song is: Deadre Chase, vocal; Lois Fry: violin; Art Troutner: oboe; Eberle Umabch: piano; & yours truly on the old 5-string electric bass guitar.
By the way, the illustration at the top of this post was done by our good friend Margot Kimball (who folks can read a lot more about on Eberle’s Platypuss-in-Boots blog). The image also appears roughly at the midpoint of the video. This would have been the cover art for the cd, but for various reasons, the project got shelved without the mixing being completed, & then the band broke up—oh well, whatcha gonna do?
All the images used in the slideshow are in the public domain except for the twelfth image (the black & white photo of elephants parading), which is from Deutsche Fotothek & licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 Germany license.
Hope you enjoy the music!