Graham Reid | | 1 min read
Daughter of the Wind
Just two decades late, in 1989 Los Angeles' Michael DeGreve recorded his album Gypsy's Lament with a crew of supportive stars: David Lindley, Graham Nash, Randy Meisner, famed session musician Leland Sklar and more.
Largely out of place in the late Eighties, his breezy singer-songwriter style was closer to the soft rock of 1969 and the likes of John Denver's summershine optimism.
DeGreve was living LA in the mid-late Seventies playing mostly covers when he was invited to go to Cheyenne, Wyoming so he loaded up his VW Combi (of course) and lit out to play his set at the Hitching Post Inn.
By his own admission, the set was “heavy on Eagles, CSN, Neil Young, Cat Stevens, Dylan, Jim Croce, Elton John, Simon and Garfunkel” and so on.
People liked it and he became a local legend in Cheyenne and stayed for decades.
He was pictured with Neil Young, Nash and many others of that ilk.
He could draw on scores of covers from Air Supply and America to Waylon and Willie, but also wrote his own material.
In '89 – belatedly following his 1970 psychedelic soul album Truth with members of the Wrecking Crew, which sold damn all -- he recorded Gypsy's Lament, a lovely collection of somewhat familiar soft rock.
As far as we can tell Michael DeGreve is now living in Oregon where he is battling cancer.
But his Truth and Gypsy's Lament albums have been reissued by the Sundaze label.
But if you taste runs to America, Denver and others who value melody, harmony vocals and heartfelt lyrics then Michael DeGreve could be a major discovery for you.
It'll take you back to those times when life seemed simpler.
That would be 1969 and perhaps not 1989.
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You can hear this album at Spotify here.
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