Marty Balin Song Getting to Be That Time of Night Again
In what turned out to be his last interview, Marty Balin told me that he couldn't wait to become back to Factory Valley, his former hometown, to take a Milley Accolade from the city for being 1 of the creators of the San Francisco Sound in the psychedelic '60s, a historic moment in popular music that earned him a place in the Stone and Roll Hall of Fame.
Traveling from his Tampa, Florida, home to Mill Valley for the 24th annual Milley awards dinner on Oct. 21 would have been the Jefferson Plane co-founder's first major trip since suffering a near-fatal centre attack in 2016.
Sadly, tragically, Balin died Sept. 27, less than a month before the awards nighttime, apparently while being rushed to a Florida infirmary. He was 76.
When I spoke to his widow, Sue Joy, by telephone and by email this week, she confirmed that she'll exist at the dinner at the Mill Valley Community Center to have the award on her late hubby's behalf. She'll be accompanied by Balin's daughters Jennifer and Delaney, her daughters Rebekah and Moriah, and other members of their blended families.
"I'll be giving my husband's credence speech, but I'm not sure how I'll do in the moment," she says. "Nosotros'll have the daughters equally back-up if demand be."
In an e-mail, she wrote, "It's been very sad and incomprehensibly alone without him. I will forever experience this loneliness."
Understandably, every bit she grieves, she hesitates to go into detail nigh the night of her husband'south death, or the exact cause. Some memories, after all, aren't easily shared and should exist saved for oneself.
'Gentle journey'
She would say simply that his passing was unexpected and that "it took my breath away." She chosen the two½ years he'd been recovering at home "a very gentle journeying."
"I feel skillful that in the later part of his life, he was definitely in a good place," she says. "He had the home he wanted, my family unit and his family unit had blended, and he had the love he wanted to be able to take care of his daughters. The best part is that he was doing the music he wanted."
When I spoke to Balin in July, he talked about the thirty-plus years he lived in Mill Valley – from 1968 to 1999 — in an unpretentious little business firm he bought at 180 Blithedale Ave., across from Scout Hall.
The pad had an open-door policy that admitted a steady stream of newly minted rock star friends such as Jerry Garcia, Janis Joplin and Mike Bloomfield.
As Balin answered my questions about his life and career, I was distressing to hear that he was hampered by a spoken language impediment caused by a paralyzed vocal cord and an injury to his tongue, the result of a tracheotomy performed when he was hospitalized in New York for the emergency heart surgery that saved his life.
Sometime after we spoke, he sued the hospital, saying the procedure was botched, destroying his career and his singing vocalism, 1 of the sweetest tenors in rock.
Golden vox
It was that golden voice that graced the two ballads — "Comin' Dorsum to Me" and "Today" — he wrote for the Jefferson Airplane'southward quantum anthology, "Surrealistic Pillow," a 1967 archetype that became part of the soundtrack of the Summer of Dearest.
While Grace Slick's "White Rabbit" and "Somebody to Honey" were the large hits on the record, it was the Marty Balin ballads that moved me the most. And I'm certain I'm not alone in that. I'd ever wondered how they had come well-nigh, what inspired them?
He explained how he wrote the lyrics and tune for "Comin' Back to Me" while he and his bandmates were recording "Surrealistic Pillow" in RCA's Studio B on Sunset Boulevard in Hollywood,
1 day, after finishing up in the studio, he ran into Paul Butterfield, the leader of the Paul Butterfield Blues Band, as Balin was walking into his motel.
"Paul said, 'Hey Marty, smoke this, human being. It's the greatest stuff yous'll ever have,'" he recalled. "And then I went to my room and smoked it, and couldn't find my legs. I couldn't find anything. It was like, 'Whoah.'"
Luckily, he managed to notice his guitar and a pen and paper.
"I picked up the guitar and in five minutes wrote the song," he remembered. "I thought, 'Hmmm, that's not bad.'"
The Grateful Dead's Garcia, who served every bit an adviser on the album and played on many of the songs, bassist Jack Casady, Grace Slick and a recording engineer were still in the studio when Balin rushed in with his new song.
"I said, 'Turn the machine on and you guys follow me,'" he remembered. "Nosotros went through the vocal once, and I said, 'That'south good.' And that was it.'"
Astonishing. One of the greatest beloved songs in rock history written in five minutes and recorded in one take.
He wrote "Today" not for himself but for crooner Tony Bennett, who was recording in a studio adjacent door.
"I just wanted to run into him, so I gave a re-create of the song to Bennett'due south drummer," he recalled. "But I'1000 non sure he always heard it."
Only also. I can't imagine even the keen Tony Bennett singing that song as passionately and beautifully as the man who wrote it did.
Excited by writing
While he was perfectly willing to wax nostalgic about the by, Balin kept steering the conversation to the songs he had just written for a new anthology he'd simply finished, "Feeling the Love Again," and a couple of others he was wrapping up in his home studio.
"I'm writing songs right and left," he said. "It's been a hell of a 2 years, but it hasn't stopped me from being creative."
To close the upcoming Milley awards, Marin musicians Jimmy Dillon, Lorin Rowan, Reed Fromer and Darby Gould will remember and honor Balin with a musical tribute.
And that's how it should be. Above money and stone stardom and awards and all else, Marty Balin was almost his music, from the songs that made him famous to the ones he was writing right up until the very end.
"Many a night I would go to bed and hear him strumming the guitar and humming a new song," his wife says. "It would draw me out of bed to a spot where he couldn't come across me, and I would retrieve to myself, 'How cute to sentry him weave together his songs.' Marty wanted everybody to remember and cover his beautiful music. That's what he lived for."
Contact Paul Liberatore at p.liberatore@comcast.net
IF Yous GO
What: 24th annual Milley Awards for Mary Balin (posthumous), Dart Cherk, Warren Farrell, Larry Lautzker, Annie Rosenthal Parr; Vera Schultz Honour to the Manufactory Valley Fall Arts Festival
When: 5 p.m. Oct. 21
Where: Mill Valley Community Center, 180 Camino Alto, Manufacturing plant Valley
Admission: $75
Information: milleyawards.org
Source: https://www.mercurynews.com/2018/10/11/remembering-marty-balin-and-his-beautiful-music/
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