Quality Americana

Keven Louis Lareau’s groovin’ version of “Easy Ride” instantly transports you back in time to the golden era of the psychedelic movement. The added sound bites in Hello Sunshine: A Tribute To Relatively Clean Rivers are reminiscent of the original recordings, and the extended acoustic guitar solo perfectly captures a campfire like jam-band atmosphere.

Listen to Hello Sunshine here.

In 2021, Lareau released “Not All Songs Have Been Sung.”

Forming the Project

“This project has been in my mind for quite a few years and I’m really excited to see it come to life,” Andy French, Editor in Chief of Raven Sings The Blues said. RSTB is coming up on their twentieth anniversary as a media outlet with a lengthy track record of supporting independent artists. “We cover local music here in Upstate New York and the East Coast,” French said, “the focus has always kind of been somewhere between psych, garage, country and experimental.”

Relatively Clean Rivers is “passed around among collectors, heads, bands, and fans as a kind of secret handshake,” French said. “Those familiar with it almost always count it among their favorites of the more obscured ends of the ‘70s. It’s an album at a crossroads. The cover art screams ‘60s psychedelia, but once inside the world that Phil Pearlman and his assembled crew have created, it’s clear that the album is as much an exploration of frayed strands of folk, country, and Americana as anything else.”

What stands out on Hello Sunshine is the fact that they’ve re-created a classic album with young and inspired artists instead of the average tribute album to a star or group that spans an entire catalog. French laughed when we asked him to take credit for this concept, but it’s something you rarely, if ever find that has endless potential. It’s akin to modern day folklore.

A Cult Classic for Audiophiles

“It’s hard to find the original,” French said of the 1970’s cult classic produced by the former Beat Of The Earth leader. “The original, kind of by design, is not printed anymore. He (Pearlman) just kind of fell off the grid.”

Hello Sunshine can be streamed and purchased here on Bandcamp.

“It’s a really hard record to find on vinyl,” Lareau said of the original album. “It was never really re-issued properly. It’s just a great vibe, and it’s a beautiful record, beautiful songs, a beautiful cover, it’s just one of those things… it’s sort of still a lost gem.”

All of the proceeds will go directly to Musicares, an organization that gives outreach and support to artists.

“I think what really works best about this is that everybody knew the original, felt the original and brought that exact same energy to it so that when it was all put together it didn’t feel uneven at all,” French said. “It felt like a big piece as a whole.”

The album features a different artist on every track, including Donovan Quinn’s version of “Babylon.” French said it’s the “one track that I had him do that was probably the least country and most psychedelic.”  It features over twenty musicians from Australia to the United Kingdom and the States. The original cover art was designed by Fez Moreno.

“He does a lot of great psych show posters,” French said. Moreno and French debated as to whether the original work was a psych album or a country album, but ultimately decided to reinterpret the cover art as a vintage country album. 

“Easy Ride”

Lareau had been “surviving the winter” in Kingston, New York in a small cabin in the woods when he recorded “Easy Ride,” and was thrilled when he was asked by French to record a piece of history.

“He kind of out of the blue sent me a message asking if I wanted to do a cover of that first song on the record,” Lareau said, “and I’ve always been a fan of that original record”. 

Lareau has been a touring musician for well over a decade, stumbling into bands with friends and roommates along the way. “I was always lucky to live with musicians and play.” Lareau was raised in the “middle of nowhere” in Concord, New Hampshire.

“It’s about ten miles of ocean in New Hampshire right near there, so it’s beautiful,” Lareau said. He wasn’t raised in a music family, though he said his cousin plays a bit. 

“My uncle probably was the only one in my extended family that played anything,” Lareau said, “and interestingly enough, he gave me the acoustic guitar that I have now.”

In addition to his solo recordings, Lareau plays in multiple groups including the Brooklyn based Cut Worms. He arranged a DIY set up to record the opening track in Hello Sunshine, and enlisted Noah Bond to remotely track the drums.

“I recorded everything myself,” Lareau said. “It’s really just a piece of (expletive) mic that’s held together by tape and a little ninety-nine dollar Focusrite interface into my old 2015 iMac… so everything’s kind of, you know, running like a bump on a log, but I get by with it.”

Lareau has only performed solo a handful of times between touring America and Europe in multiple projects. His solo EPs can be found here.

“It’s hard to, kind of, play the songs without all the accompaniment,” Lareau said. “I’ve done it with backing tracks on a tape, which has been a good way to problem solve for not being able to have a band, and it’s actually something that a lot of artists in the 60’s and 70’s used to do, just run around with a reel to reel and play solo off their recordings.”

Lareau said he got the inspiration from his bandmate Max Clarke in Cut Worms.

“First time I ever saw him play he did that too,” Lareau said. “I just stole that idea.”

Reinterpreting the Original

Lareau said that “no one could really touch the vibe of the original” as a challenge, but we have to disagree. The tribute album has a fresh energy with a classic sound that is not only important as an idea to re-record an original lost work of art, but wonderful unique music by today’s artists as well. 

French is also planning his fourth annual Deep in the Valley festival in Upstate New York that helps independent artists prepare for larger audiences and a chance at the festival circuit. Proceeds from the sale of the Hello Sunshine will give relief to those suffering from wildfires.

Support the arts by purchasing Hello Sunshine: A Tribute To Relatively Clean Rivers on Bandcamp.

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