Tune Tag #85 with Jazz Guitarist, Colin Poulton: Gary Burton, Beatles, The Band, Savage Grace, Bobby Charles, Beach Boys, Black Sabbath, Crack the Sky
The famous and legendary meet some you may not have heard or heard of! For the first time in history, ladies and gentlemen: The Beatles in the same breath as Crack the Sky and Savage Grace!
Colin: Thanks for having me, Brad, for my first Tune Tag! I’m two-months-new to Substack, and really enjoy the community here; there are lots of people here that are really passionate about music, and I’m really excited for the opportunity to write about some cool songs!
I live in Nashville, where, until late 2023, I had spent the better part of a decade as the guitarist that accompanies you when you perform live after you release your new record! I was playing acoustic covers at a downtown hotel. That all changed when I talked my way into bringing in some jazz musicians to try something completely different, and here I am a year and change later about to release my debut EP!
I’m a little burned out on the social media hustle and the constant blurring between being a content creator and a musician; Substack seems like a nice way to try to get off the ferris wheel and have direct contact with my audience as I build one from the ground up!
So far, my newsletter focuses on the music that I’ve written which will soon segue into info about my upcoming EP, but I also dig writing about the things that make me human, like the birth of my daughter Olympia, and how we hid her name from family until after she was born, as well as writing about one of my other passions: cooking!
During lockdown, I had a revelation: I’m not a musician—I’m a human being who makes music. Feel free to subscribe to my Colin Poulton’s Newsletter if you want a peek behind the curtain of a working cat in Nashville trying to share his music and his humanity with the world!
Brad: Currently (and musically), Colin is at the helm of the Colin Poulton Trio, where his virtuosity as a bandleader and soloist shines through. The trio draws heavily from Latin jazz, with influences including Al Di Meola, Egberto Gismonti, Gary Burton, John Scofield, Miles Davis, Chet Baker, and Antonio Carlos Jobim.
🌟The group’s debut EP is expected to be released spring/summer 2025! Beyond jazz, he remains actively engaged as a working musician, performing with artists spanning diverse genres! And, here they are to kick us off!👇
Colin’s song #1 sent to Brad: Gary Burton, Steve Swallow, Larry Bunker, “Falling Grace,” 1966
Colin’s rationale: I decided to send “Falling Grace,” composed by Steve Swallow, but recorded by many others, as my first volley in Tune Tag. This specific recording is from Gary Burton’s 1966 record, The Time Machine, and is the first known recording of this tune to my knowledge.
There are plenty of other killer cuts of this song that I enjoy, including one by John Scofield and a live one by another Gary Burton-led ensemble featuring Pat Metheny, Steve Swallow, and Antonio Sanchez, which was likely my first exposure to this tune.
I wanted to start out with this tune because it became one of those tunes that I wish I had written. I love how the chords move in a counter-intuitive, but beautiful, sequence, and to me the melody invokes a unique sense of drama, mystery, and beauty. Vibraphone is a criminally under-utilized instrument in jazz, and Burton is truly a master.
At the risk of sloppy music history, this tune comes right around a time when musicians and composers that came up learning from bebop and Great American Songbook material started to veer off and explore alternative harmony in a way that wasn’t quite jazz but also wasn’t quite fusion as we typically think of it with synthesizers and electric guitar calisthenics.
Brad’s song #1 sent to Colin: Savage Grace, “1984,” 1970
Colin’s response: My guess is we have the word “grace” (which also happens to be my youngest sister’s name; go see her if you’re ever in Nashville and need a tattoo!) in common between my song title and your band name. This song and band were both new to me. I associate the song “1984” with the opener from Van Halen’s album of the same name, a synthesizer-drenched instrumental hymn of sorts played by Eddie, so it was cool to find another song with the same name.
I really dug this tune; it made sense when I looked them up and saw that they were from Detroit. There was something about this tune that reminded me of Bob Seger that I can’t put my finger on. The guitar playing sounds like something you’d hear from the early 70s and is way up my alley!
Brad’s rationale: The rare double-tag! Taking the Gary Burton album’s Time Machine title (and the “Falling Grace” song title), and sending Savage Grace thru the time-space continuum, from 1970 (they should thank me!) all the way to 1984 (by way of 2025)!
Not just a shallow, meaningless entry, I actually had the two Reprise/Warner Bros Records Savage Grace albums at that time (their 1970 self-titled debut, and the next year’s Savage Grace 2).
I was 15 in 1970, and as many readers know, by now, my dad was a local Houston ad exec at KTRH-AM and KLOL-FM, and would regularly bring home promo albums on major labels (mostly Warners and Columbia).
Lead singer here, Ron Koss, seems to affect a bit of a Mick Jagger tone’n’cadence on this Stones-y rocker. Classic rock fans will want to notice that this is one of the first production jobs by soon-to-be indispensable producer, Joe Wissert! His work on 2 albums, six years later, is the focus of this recent article:
Colin’s song #2: Black Sabbath, “Hole in the Sky,” 1975
Brad’s response: Well, this could be a label match…Reprise/Warner Bros for Savage Grace, and Warner Bros proper for Sabbath (in U.S.). Two-word group names? Savage Grace and Black Sabbath. Also, Black Sabbath’s Warner Bros. debut (Vertigo in UK) was in 1970, matching the year of release for the Savage Grace LP.
Colin and our readers might be interested in my post-Sabbath brief encounter with Ozzy’s Blizzard guitarist, Randy Rhoads:
Speaking of my high school-era bedroom festooned with albums from The Home of The Bunny, playing synthesizer (noted as “Moog assistance”) on that Savage Grace LP was one Bernie Krause (now 86), who, with fellow keyboardist, Paul Beaver, released three albums on Warners in successive years: In a Wild Sanctuary (1970), Ghandarva (1971), and All Good Men (1972), under the name Beaver & Krause. I had ‘em all.
Wiki on Beaver & Krause: The duo’s 1967 album, The Nonesuch Guide to Electronic Music, was a pioneering work in the electronic music genre. The pair were Robert Moog’s sales representatives on the West Coast, and were instrumental in popularizing the Moog synthesizer during the late 1960s. As recording artists for Warner Bros. Records in the early ‘70s, they released the critically admired albums In a Wild Sanctuary and Gandharva.
Colin’s rationale: I’m guessing there are a few links here! First of all, both tunes (Sabbath’s “Hole in the Sky” and Crack the Sky’s “Hold On,” Brad’s next song, just below) come from records released in 1975. Secondly, we can’t overlook the link with the word “sky” or how close “hole” and “hold” are, either!
For “Hole in the Sky,” the 6/8 riff around 1:27 in 1984 instantly transported me to 1975 and the opening track to Black Sabbath’s record, Sabotage. I think I was first turned onto this tune via hearing Pantera’s cover as a young teenage hesher.
Upon getting to college, I made friends with my buddy Al from Atlanta who became my bandmate in a project called Clorange (check out our record here - clorange.bandcamp.com/album/instinct) and he initiated me into the cult of Ozzy-era Sabbath.
Their first six records became my gospel, and an interesting backdrop to studying jazz and classical guitar! You can definitely hear the edges of a band starting to fray here, but there are some strong moments on the record including “Hole In The Sky”!
Tune Tag swag here! The sapphire blue Tune Tag crewneck sweatshirt! Perfect for cooler nights, and just the thing for comfy sleepwear! All sizes available!
Brad’s song #2: Crack the Sky, “Hold On” (demo, early ‘70s, helped lead to their Lifesong signing)
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