Big ol jet airliner

long time comin

Off day for the Sox... a good day to break out one of the posts I've been savin up for a while.

I missed it entirely, but this past October, one of the great musical sprirts of our time, Paul Pena, passed away. Paul is not a household name, and for most of his career was an obscure musical footnote even for music geeks like myself. He was known - if he's was known at all - for writing a song that became one of the biggest hits of the 1970s - Steve Miller's 'Jet Airliner'. In recent years, he gained some fame as the subject of the Belac brothers award winning documentary Genghis Blues, which follows Pena as he travels to Tuva to compete in a national throat singing contest. It's a challenge not only because Tuva (near Mongolia) is a land that time forgot, but also that Pena is blind (and sick). But the movie is tribute to his strong personality and all things that the human spirit may overcome. I don't think I'm going to listen to any Tuvan throat singing any time soon, but its still a flick worth checking out.

Anyways, the other day, buying birthday gifts for the MILF on amazon, I stumbled across Pena's long lost album "New Train', recorded in 1972, but not released until 2000. The record company executive that kept this gem on the shelf for 28 years deserves to be drawn and quartered. Among the gems on this lost masterpiece are the title cut, the original souful version of 'Jet Airliner' (the one that Miller heard, then recorded and tunred into a million-selling mega-hit), and 'Gonna Move', a staple for a lot of soul bands that, I swear, if you can't get a groove goin to this tune, you have no fucking soul.

Do yourself a favor and buy this record!