RIP-John S. Carter-Incense Peppermint & beyond!

[jamestkirk]

This from RW....


The passing of a guy who, for the most part, will only be known by music industry people, or those of
us who have been aware of him for various more unusual reasons. For myself, it was as a high school
kid, listening to radio KBLA in Los Angeles, circa 1966-67, an incredibly hip, pre-FM rock station; an
AM station that played more Love than any other station, anywhere in the world. Anyway, at the time,
KBLA locked into an album by the Rainy Daze, best known for their novelty chart hit, "Acapulco Gold."
Novelty tune aside, the album had some excellent tracks, three or four of which found their way to the
KBLA airwaves. Well worth seeking out and hearing, all penned by the writing team of Carter-Gilbert.
Carter by then (summer of '67) was already known as the guy who'd written the lyrics of "Incense and
Peppermints," while a college student in Colorado. So the Rainy Daze begat Horses (White Whale,
1968), which in turn begat Kingfish, and all the while, the Carter-Gilbert writing team continued to make
quality music. Carter produced what I still believe is Sammy Hagar's best post-Montrose work, the
album "Red" (listen again to "Fillmore Shuffle"from that one), on to monster success with Tina Turner,
but also early important involvement with the eels and Paula Cole, among many others. It was a nice
surprise to get a phone call from Carter early this decade, while I was on the air at very cool central
coastal California radio station. He just liked the station, and what he was hearing, and had no idea
that I had any clue who he was, or that I'd been a fan of his for over thirty years. A really cool guy, he
politely tolerated my gushing praise about how much his Rainy Daze and Horses work had meant to
me as a kid. He'd had so vastly much greater success with any number of music projects since then,
and just kind of went, "Well that was a long time ago, and I had no idea what I was doing, but it was
a foot in the door of the music biz, and I like to think I've learned a little since then." At the time he
was either living in the area (Cambria, up Highway One, north of San Luis Obispo and south of Big
Sur) or at least visiting the area to have been listening at the time. The comments in the following
piece come from both musicians and from music industry vets, but they paint a pretty good picture
of who Carter was, and why he will be missed.

-RW

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