Commercially Inviable Records

Sad news reaches Commercially Inviable as we note the passing of Ben Keith.

Ben wasn’t the most famous musician to have ever walked the earth, and indeed it was hard to find news online as the story slowly broke along the grapevine earlier today, but his CV is just incredible. To put it simply, he played with them all.

Most notably Neil Young trusted him as his pedal steel sideman for almost 40 years. That’s Ben on Young’s classic “Harvest” LP…oh, and he also played on Patsy Cline’s “I Fall To Pieces”. It’s more than fair to say that this man had chops and will be missed.

Here he is onstage with Neil Young..

Campbell from Friends of the Stars has made a Spotify playlist of songs Ben Keith played on. For those of you without Spotify, here’s what you’re missing.

TRACKLISTING:

Anne Murray - “Danny’s Song”
Neil Young - “Walk On”
Emmylou Harris - Till I Gain Control Again
Crosby & Nash - “Fieldworker”
Neil Young - “Mellow My Mind”
Bob Neuwirth - “Cowboys & Indians”
Todd Rundgren - “Cold Morning Light”
Harris, Ronstadt & Parton - “The Blue Train”
Terry Reid - “Dean”
The Band - “The Promised Land”
Neil Young - “Harvest Moon”
Tim Hardin - “Bird On The Wire”
Warron Zevon - “Bed of Coals”
Neil Young - “It’s A Dream”
Patsy Cline - “I Fall To Pieces”

There may be some that Cam has missed, or you may have your own suggestions, but as Neil Young reportedly said on stage last night before dedicating a song to the man, “His spirit will live on”

Thanks for the music, Brother Ben

SPOTIFY LINK

Last weekend the vast majority of the Commercially Inviable stable of acts took a day-trip down to Somerset.  The reason for the trip was for each of them to record a session for the very lovely Songs from the Shed. World of Fox takes up the tale on his blog

“so, last saturday we all went down to north somerset where we ate sarnies, drank beer, snoozed in a hammock and played a few songs in a shed, captured on a camcorder by a lovely chap called jon. it’s quite a big shed, but even so it was quite a squeeze for gurdan thomas, given that there was five of them, and one was playing a tuba

the shed is an old billet hut and is stuffed full of fascinating detritus. one thing that caught my eye was an old magnetic theatre toy that i had when i was about four!

it was a thoroughly nice day out and some of us popped over to nearby clevedon for a glimpse of the seaside (well, the severn estuary, but close enough for a bunch of brummies). it has a nice pier:

i haven’t seen the finished videos, but i’ve a feeling they’ll be pretty good. jon will be posting them up on his website in the next few weeks, and obviously i’ll keep you posted when they’re up.”

Likewise, we can’t wait to see the results. A big thanks from us at the label to Jon from Songs from the Shed for accomodating 4 acts on the same day. Watch this space for links to the videos!