Looks like the Continental Drifters are officially legendary now. Though the band itself is currently on hiatus, they’re being honored with the trifecta of a compilation double album, a print biography, and this two-CD tribute album curated by biographer Sean Kelly and longtime friend and associate, Los Angeles musician David Jenkins. Since most of these songs are nowhere near as well-known as they deserve to be, the collection serves to get a bunch of lost gems their due.
Nine different songwriters are represented, including all but one of the past and present Drifters (original keyboardist Danny McGough doesn’t get a song in, but he does make a few appearances on the album). And the contributors come mainly from the band’s two hometowns, Los Angeles and New Orleans. Highlights are many, but the best tracks tweak the songs just enough to bring in fresh nuances. Power pop master Marshall Crenshaw turns a power pop song, Peter Holsapple’s “Darlin Darlin,” into something more late-night moody. The band Jolene makes a dramatic mini-epic out of Susan Cowsill’s personal tale “Spring Day in Ohio.” Steve Wynn gives an appropriately spooky, early Fleetwood Mac feel to “Green,” about the late Mac guitarist Peter Green. And Annette Zilinskas, a Bangles bandmate of Drifter Vicki Peterson, sings the heck out of “Dallas” (by original bandmember Gary Eaton), not skimping on the chorus harmonies that made that tune so memorable live.
The New Orleans contingent provide some interesting reinventions. The Iguanas give a jaunty, accordion-led treatment to Carlo Nuccio’s sly misadventure song, “Sidesteppin’ the Fire.” Alex McMurray and McGough go full-on Southern rock with another Nuccio tune, “Mezzanine.” A pair of female singers do heartbreaking turns with Drifters ballads, Candace Mache with her husband Robert’s “Heart, Home” and Dayna Kurtz with “Long While.” Most surprisingly, George Porter Jr. doesn’t opt for a funky number and instead does one of their deepest ballads, “Peaceful Waking” (by Cowsill and Russ Broussard), giving it a classic R&B feel.
Those are a few highlights; I haven’t even mentioned that members of R.E.M., Hootie & the Blowfish and the Cowsills appear elsewhere. Together with the compilation album, this set evinces the full range and depth of the Drifters catalog. Unless of course, the Drifters ever feel like adding more songs to it.
The album can be ordered here.
Continental Drifters
