Circus Maximus – Wind

I blog because I like to talk to everyone about the artists I and they featured that day. Sometimes, the conversations go elsewhere and not long ago I happened to catch a conversation between CB and Phil from the Cactus Patch. They mentioned Circus Maximus which featured Jerry Jeff Walker. I pay attention to all the conversations, even if they don’t involve me, and pick up some good songs that way.

I started to listen to their music. I liked their debut album which has intricate musical arrangements that border a free-form type of music. It flows like jazz and dips into psychedelic. It also has a little of The Guess Who in it.  It’s a piece of music from the psychedelic rock era that fits into the landscape of the 1960s. Their members included Jerry Jeff Walker, Bob Bruno, David Scherstrom, Gary White, and Peter Troutner.

Jerry Jeff Walker was probably the most famous to come out of the band. In the early 1970s, Walker relocated to Austin, Texas, where he became part of the burgeoning outlaw country music scene. He helped define that genre. He was part of the Texas songwriters such as Willie Nelson, Guy Clark, and Townes Van Zandt. You know his most famous song very well, Mr Bojangles. That song was made popular by the Nitty Gritty Dirt Band.

While Circus Maximus did not achieve mainstream commercial success, they gained a cult following within the psychedelic rock scene of the late 1960s. The song is called Wind, which was on their debut album released in 1967. The album was played on the progressive FM radio stations.

Wind

You say that once knew for sure
But now you’re walkin’ into shore to wonder*
The more you learn the less you know
The more you move the more you go to nowhere*
You ask a bird as she flies by
Just where she’s at she says, where the wind blows*
Ask her by that what she means
She says she doesn’t know
But as she flew away she seemed to say

Chorus:

The wind is love is the wind
Wind is my love
Who knows the wind
Who knows my love
Where blows the wind
The wind is my love
You say you staggered to your room
Sleep by day and plot by noon
Your conscious plight
Pack your dreams, you move away
Decide to eat and live by day
And leave the night
City sun blinks in your eyes
You shade your face and realize
a lonely crowd
Then at once you feel the smile
And then the ice warm air moves by
She says the breeze provokes her sigh
Chorus

You say you found another spring
Another joy or human thing
Called lovers
You play your role as a comedy
Refreshing well the tradgedy
Your living
Lovers shore, or so you say
Like the wind love blew away
But as she left she seemed to say

Chorus

…

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Author: Badfinger (Max)

Power Pop fan, Baseball, Beatles, Alternative music, old movies, and tv show fan. Also anything to do with pop culture in the 60s and 70s... I'm also a songwriter, bass and guitar player. Not the slightest bit interested in politics at all.

26 thoughts on “Circus Maximus – Wind”

  2. I didn’t know the band name but vaguely recognized the song, I think I heard it occasionally on the classic rock station in the ’80s and ’90s. The music is pleasant enough, I like the piano that shows up here & there but his voice gets a little annoying to listen to for long. To me at least. But a good obscure find.

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      1. Thinking about it, I think David Marsden occasionally played it late at night, and it certainly has that late-night, winding down kind of feel to it.

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      2. It kinda of sounds like The Guess Who at the beginning… the album is the kind where you sit back while you are doing something and listen…like jazz.

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    1. Man this one took me by surprise…the album did. When you two were talking about that…I thought I would hear a little more singer songwriter material…this was a very cool surprise.

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    1. It took me by surprise John. I was expecting Jerry Jeff Walker kind of music…but this was so different. I agree about the 12 string…it had no sharpness or compression like McGuinn and Harrison.

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  8. This is different, would be an outlier for those who know his more known music. Musical paths can wind everywhere before you find an artists more common and familiar ground I guess.

    No Country for young men then.🙄

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  9. They ain’t half bad, but I can’t believe JJ came out of that group. They had a Byrds on acid kind of feel. I don’t know what flew up JJW’s rear end to make him come to Texas and completely change himself, or maybe he was that guy all along but needed a group at the time. One of you guys should have the answer on that one. When I was a sort of part of the Austin hippie cowboy thing back in the early 70s, I met JJ and some of his cohorts at Shorty’s Bar in Port Aransas. This was right before he recorded the Viva Terlingua album in Luckenbach, Tx. He sure lost his New York accent fast, and you would have thought he was a native Texan. He was a nice fella, very humble, but he was pretty darn wasted on Lone Star Beer as were his buddies, as they had been out in the gulf fishing all day. He was a big admirer of my dads band, The Light Crust Doughboys, so they chewed the fat for a while on western swing. I consider Viva Terlingua his best album, and work. Who else records with a bunch of crazy Texas musicians in an old worn-out general store in the Texas hill country. Jerry Jeff, of course.

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    2. I’m still learning about him but yes Phil…when you guys mentioned him I was expecting somewhat of the same stuff I know from him. I was in for a surprise. It’s not bad at all but “Pissin’ in the Wind” or Mr Bojangles it’s not.
      You are right…it does have a Byrds feel or a 1960s San Francisco feel.
      I would love to know what inspired him to reinvent himself.
      I love the personal story you had with him. You met a lot of cool people.
      Speaking of your Dad Phil…I found a draft that I started on the Big D Jamboree…I will finish it….I did a little more research on it last week.

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      1. Thanks, Max. I was lucky to have met many folks in the music biz back then. The Austin DFW scene was incredible, and quite a tight group of musicians. It seems everyone knew each other from gigs, recording etc. I attended the Big D Jamboree on many Saturday nights when my dad was in the house band, and he would take me just to give my mother a break. I was young, around 6 or 7 and didn’t have a clue who the performers I met were. Carl Perkins, Lefty Frizzel, Wanda Jackson and so many others. I would sit with the entertainers, seated either on or on the main floor to the right of the stage. Wanda Jackson took a liking to me and even cleaned my ears with spit on a handkerchief; now that was something to behold. She also filled me with Coca Cola and candy bars. The Jamboree is where Ronnie Dawson got his start at age 16, and he and my father, and myself became lifelong friends. Please write about it if you can, it’s pure music history.

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      2. Funny you mentioned Ronnie Dawson…that is how it got brought back up. Dave was telling me about him and I told him about the post I wrote…. and I started to look through my draft posts and I found that one on the Jamboree.
        Oh I will finish it Phil…I added some more to it. Whew…Wanda Jackson…that is something I would never forget.
        You met some legends there no doubt.
        I’m off tomorrow so I’ll work on it tomorrow some.

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  10. This is an embarrassing story. I remember this album, it was on Vanguard. I bought it because they did a cover of Dylan’s Memphis Blues Again. I never, ever got around to playing it. So tell me, was that track any good?

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