Tag: David Scherstrom

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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