I never had a chance to catch David LaFlamme in concert, and now it is too late: The rock-violinist died at age 82 earlier this month of health problems related to Parkinson’s disease.
As soon as I entered college, I heard stories about his band, It’s A Beautiful Day, which had given a concert there the previous year — the same year as their appearance at Tanglewood in the video below — and it apparently went on for hours, much like Grateful Dead concerts. In fact, Laflamme was among the musicians of Haight-Ashbury in San Francisco and he had jammed with Jerry Garcia and other musicians of the day.
It’s A Beautiful Day was unlike any other band, with haunting vocals by LaFlamme and Pattie Santos. His then-wife, Linda Rudman, was on keyboards, with guitarist Hal Wagenet, bassist Mitchell Holman, and drummer Val Fuentes. They never quite achieved the fame of other Haight-Ashbury bands like Jefferson Airplane and Santana.
LaFlamme was a classically trained violinist and Tom Rigney, another violinist and band leader, said, “David was unquestionably the primary musician to introduce the world to the idea that the violin could take the lead in a rock band.”
LaFlamme was born in New Britain, Connecticut, and grew up in Salt Lake City, Utah, and he performed for a while with the Utah Symphony Orchestra. He moved to the Bay Area in 1962 after being discharged from the Army. He created the band Electric Chamber Orkustra, a synthesis between a symphonic orchestra and a psychedelic band, with Bobby Beausoleil — a musician who became associated with Charles Manson and later was convicted in the murder of Gary Hinman.
In 1967, LaFlamme joined Dan Hicks & His Hot Licks before forming It’s A Beautiful Day that same year. The song “White Bird” — which he co-wrote with Rudman — would become the band’s signature song, and LaFlamme said it was inspired by their experiences while the band was living in the attic of their manager, Matthew Katz, in Seattle, Washington, writing and rehearsing new songs between club performances:
Where the “white bird” thing came from ... We were like caged birds in that attic. We had no money, no transportation, the weather was miserable. We were just barely getting by on a very small food allowance provided to us. It was quite an experience, but it was very creative in a way. …
When you have lyrics that go, “The leaves blow across the long black road to the darkened sky,” that’s exactly what we were seeing.
After struggling with small-club bookings, the band got its first big break when it had a chance to open for Cream at the Oakland Coliseum on October 4, 1968.
The band’s first album cover featured artwork that evoked an earlier age: Designed by George Hunter and painted by Kent Hollister, it was based on the 1912 painting “Woman on the Top of a Mountain” by Charles Courtney Curran. The album cover achieved a number 24 rating on Rolling Stone’s list of 100 greatest album covers. (The “Woman on the Top of a Mountain” also appears in the background on the cover of “Happy Trails” by Quicksilver Messenger Service.)
In addition to “White Bird”, the album featured “Hot Summer Day” and “Time Is” which also proved to be popular. Deep Purple used the theme from another song on the album, “Bombay Calling”, as the intro to “Child In Time”.
It’s a Beautiful Day was one of the last acts to appear at San Francisco’s Fillmore West, in July 1971. The band would put out a couple of other albums before disbanding, but LaFlamme continued performing until 2020.
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