Best of Hawai'i: Greg Yoder is the Dreamer of Life [1976, recommended] and Golden Throat [197?]

I can't share Golden Throat due to its rarity, but I will excerpt three songs (the best ones, frankly) so you can form your own opinion about it.  First of all, continuing in the vein of songs about "Stupid record companies" and their elusive, hard to get contracts, we have Golden Throat's bluegrassy Contract Song, presumably a celebratory ditty:

Worse songs than this one are played every hour on the radio nowadays, and were, at that time.  But
my favourite ballad is a simply gorgeous and tender track with ethereal chord changes and fifth - sixth (?) harmony vocals.  The melody that jumps up by a fifth is the unusual aspect to this one.   (Rachell Cypriano is the female vocalist's name, and I thought she had an entry in the Home Grown series.)

Whilst the band is clearly showing off its AOR - progressive knowledge in the opening to the freaky instrumental jam-packed African Sham:

_________

Moving on to the next entry, Greg Yoder was a San Fran man who moved to Hawai'i in the early seventies and after achieving some local fame in the Waikiki area, recorded this one-off LP full of gentle meditative and happy should've-been hits.





"I got a wino father who ain't got no dollar but shure 'nuff he got soul,
He's sorry for the things he did, sorry for the way he said, 'this will never go:'
He's a dreamer of life, still got a long way to go
Gotta get it together before his time runs low..."

And I think we all know the kind of man he is referring to here in this beautifully penned tune.  It's a song that almost seems made to be sung out loud in the car, especially that na-na-na outro part, preferably I guess a jeep or convertible with the top down.


The Golden Lady tune shows his skills at excellent chord changes:





It's quite astounding how the chorus, backed up by those cloud-like strings, changes chords in that descending chromatic pattern and then ends on such a completely unexpected major chord. (From Bflat down to A ?)

So please enjoy Greg-- that beautiful groovy dreamer of life, and do seek out his compatriots Golden Throat...