Tompkins Square, the purveyor of “lost” albums as limited vinyl releases and Bandcamp (and elsewhere) digital releases have yet another beauty of a release in the form of Rick Deitrick’s ‘Coyote Canyon‘. This consists of seven songs recorded between 1972 and 1975, with an eighth from 1999.
Rick has said this about the album: “Coyote Canyon is a wilderness area behind my daughter’s house where coyotes gather and howl before taking off for their nightly foraging. ‘Little Tujunga‘ (pronounced “Tuhunga”) is a river running through the Angeles Forest near a house I lived in five decades ago. Half my ideas for this piece came from onshore guitar ruminating. The rest was improvised in studio. ‘Emma‘ was my close and sweet companion during this period, a lifelong deep friend. I composed her song one evening at the kitchen table of our place while she was cooking. ‘Tumbleweedin’‘ describes a desert tumbleweed storm. I menaced every inch of the Yamaha, recreating the effect of these windblown monsters screeching along boulders, smacking into cactus and anything else in their way at often impossible speeds, following the whims of the heavy winds. This song was completely improvised at the moment in studio and forgotten. ‘Roy’s Rain‘ is a tribute to my great good friend and musician killed in a car accident in 1973. I found ‘For Marsha (Version 2)‘ on a well-worn studio tape. It’s a variant of the same composition on the ‘Gentle Wilderness‘ album. I like this loose and flowy version. ‘Movin’ On‘ has one thing on its mind — getting away fast and now. ‘Going Home‘ is my improvised take on an American root song. The above seven were recorded between 1972-1975. ‘Three Sisters‘ was recorded on a 20-minute studio break in 1999 describing three barren red hills somewhere in the Arizona desert, a cherished location.”
