It's A Beautiful Day: Don and Dewey

Well it’s definitely not a traditional song, but the violin is a traditional instrument – and it can rock in the hands of David LaFlamme and “It’s a Beautiful Day.” Since it’s not a traditional song, I’m cooking up a new Tuesday feature called “Tasty Licks Tuesday” as of today.

I’ve been doing the Traditional Tuesday feature for over two years and it is time to retire this trusted friend and try something that’s different. The generic nature of the title will allow for traditional tunes as well as any other genre with “tasty licks” to be served up as appetizer for the rest of your day.

Today’s song was named in honor of fiddler Don “Sugarcane” Harris and his partner Dewey Terry – collectively known as “Don and Dewey” – like the song’s title. Actually parts of this tune sound more like Don and John rather than Don and Dewey. The harmonica is reminiscent of one of Sugarcane Harris’ other collaborators:  John Mayall. Mayall's Bluesbreakers was the venue where I first heard of Harris. LaFlamme’s style on this cut is quite similar to Harris - not quite, but very, very close.

The cut opens their second LP “Marrying Maiden” and It’s a Beautiful Day made no bones about it that they stole the tune from a Deep Purple recording of “Wring that Neck” – a payback to the band since Deep Purple stole their composition “Bombay Calling” for the song “Child in Time” from “Deep Purple in Rock.” “Wring that Neck” came from Purple’s second LP – “The Book of Taliesyn.” Here’s DP’s original.