Click the link to listen and read about this song.
After forty years and several thousand gigs, there's been alot of notes played... some of 'em played where they ought'a be. Here's some collected memorabilia from the 1960 through the present.
Over the years, I've picked a few things... and I've selected a few things. Here, I've selected a few things I've picked.
I uploaded a half dozen tunes to MySpace. They're FREE to stream. Included are tracks from the AM Band CDs: "Triskaidekaphilia", "In My Hand", "On the Radio" and "Swang" CDs. I encourage you to listen... if you wonder why, read my "Opinions."
From late 1974 to 1985, I worked for Centron Films in Lawrence, Kansas doing sound for industrial and eductional films. I did everything from location sound, studio sound, sound effects, mixing... and music composition. The first track I composed for a film was in 1975 -- an educational called "Caught in a Ripoff." I also played the 16 year old shoplifting central character in this movie. (By the way, it's available from Skip Elsheimer's AV-Geeks with some other films for which I wrote music.)
In the 11 years I spent at Centron (that is, before I was granted parole) I worked on hundreds of films and wrote hundreds of snippets of music, including the title track for "Shake Hands with Danger", a safety film produced for Caterpillar Tractor Co. in 1979. The vocalist is Charles Oldfather, one time Dean of the University of Kansas Law School. I auditioned dozens of country singers... and Charles just had that right touch. Some folks have compared him to Johnny Cash... personally, I think he sounds nothing like the man in black, but I know that if Charlie were alive to hear these comments, he'd grin from ear to ear. The lyrics were written by John Clifford, who with director Herk Harvey, created the cult horror film, "Carnival of Souls."
The download above is the theme songs, though this version doesn't appear in the movie, but rather it was on an accompanying cassette which was sold at showings. Our initial order of cassettes for Caterpillar was 12,500 and when those were gone, we duplicated another 12,500, and then a third order for 5000 was placed, though quite a few of those stayed on the shelf. This is the best quality you'll find of this song -- I digitized it from the original 2-Track 15IPS stereo mix. You can hear my mix ID at the beginning of the track.