Sandro Oliva – former member of The Grandmothers, and one of my favourite guitarists – has been torturing Italian eardrums with his own band, The Blue Pampurio’s, since 1974.
Sandro Oliva‘s cover of FZ’s “Watermelon In Easter Hay” (one of the very best covers of that particular song I’ve heard, I might add) from the above clip is from the 2005 4CD private release, “NEVER COVERED” (for family and friends).
Long before making “NEVER COVERED” I recorded “LOVES OF MY LIFE”, a collection of FZ songs sang in Italian, along with a few instrumentals.
This is one of them.
The project has never been put out for copyright reasons, but I still have fun listening to “BROWN SHOES DON’T MAKE IT”, “JOE’S GARAGE/PEE”, “HELP I’M A ROCK”, “GO CRY..”, “CAMARILLO BRILLO” and “TURNING AGAIN”, the Italian Way!
I’m sure Frank would have appreciated it.
Unfortunally he got ill and after that more shit happened, so that I never asked the ZFT permission for releasing the italian translations.
Oh, well… maybe now that I’m not a Grandmother anymore…
But no, never mind.
I’m too busy with MY OWN MUSIC!!
~Sandro
Sandro Oliva – Guitar, Bass, Electric Sitar, Keyboards, Percussion, Sequencing.
“Iām sure Frank would have appreciated it.”
Maybe he would, he wanted people to play his music, and musicians who can play were always OK with him … but the word on the street is, he didn’t want anyone to play “Watermelon in Easter Hay” after his death.
Do you believe that? Supposed to be the same with Zoot Allures and Black Napkins…. (although ZPZ have performed those two)
Personally I don’t buy it.
That tale sounds very un-Frank-like. If I remember correctly he supposedly also said he only wanted DZ to cover those songs.
Holy shit!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2KGnP396baE
Dweezil does a note for note rendition of the album version of Zoot Allures. Nice to hear since frank always played the version with the A major/diminished tonal palette. The ZA album version has a C# minor to F#7 vamp. Nice to finally hear and to hear someone absolutely nail it is pretty awesome. He then goes into a crazy version of ships ahoy that seems completely improvised and has a lot of whole tone craziness. Check it out.
Psssst. If you read a little closer, you’ll notice that Sandro recorded “Watermelon In Easter Hay” while FZ was still alive, he just never released it for copyright reasons. Given GZ’s rabidness (bordering on insanity) when it comes to copyright, I can understand Sandro’s reluctance. I’m glad he released it on YouTube, though. I hope other FZ covers are forthcoming…
As for a ban on musicians playing particular FZ songs like “Watermelon In Easter Hay”, “Zoot Allures” and “Black Napkins”. It’s really quite ridiculous. Just look at the source of this “so-called” ban…
[quote comment=”11174″]Holy shit!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2KGnP396baE%5B/quote%5D
A very excellent and refreshing take on Zoot Allures, for sure š
I saw Sandro with the Grandmothers in 1993, and even though he was spookily reminiscent of Frank (from some angles), the concert was a bit disappointing. The highlight of the evening was in fact sitting next to Jimmy Carl Black in the bar, although I didn’t have the nerve to talk to him… This is a nice version of Watermelon, but as good as Sandro is, I think the current lineup of the Grandmothers with Roy Estrada, Napi and Miroslav Tadic is superior to the band he was in.