W is for Windy

The Association recorded Ruthann Friedman’s song ‘Windy’ in 1967, and it was released on their Insight Out album.  ‘Windy’ peaked at #1 on the Top 40 radio charts in July of that same year and spent four weeks at the top spot.  ‘Windy’ allowed Friedman to become just the third female songwriter to reach the number one position on the charts.  Guitarists Russ Giguere and new member, Larry Ramos who was a member of The New Christy Minstrels, were chosen to share lead vocals on this song.  ‘Windy’ was nominated for a Grammy Award as best contemporary group performance but lost out to The 5th Dimension’s ‘Up, Up and Away’.  Windy is a very special girl that might be peeking out from under a stairway, but that is OK, because her name is lighter than air.  She might be bending down to give you a rainbow and if that happens, you will know it was Windy.  She could be tripping down the streets of the city and smiling at everybody she sees.  She would be the one reaching out to capture a moment.  Windy has stormy eyes that flash at the sound of lies and Windy has wings to fly above the cloud.

Insight Out was the Association’s first album release for the Warner Brothers label and it became one of the top selling LPs of the year in America, peaking at #8 on the Billboard Top LPs chart and being certified gold by the Recording Industry Association of America.  Ruthann Friedman was living in David Crosby’s basement when she wrote ‘Windy’, and at one point, after Signe Anderson left, Jefferson Airplane, they wanted her to be their lead singer, that is till they found Grace Slick.  Her output consisted of a lone Folk album Constant Companion issued in 1970, and a compilation album Hurried Life: Lost Recordings 1965-1971 which was issued in 2006.   However, in 2013, many of the fascinating recordings that she created with some of the most revered names in West Coast pop which remained locked away in the vaults have been released on Windy: A Ruthann Friedman Songbook, which includes 18 tracks from 1966-1970.  Ruthann also released her second album Chinatown in October, 2013.  She was in the rock band Petrus and she also wrote and sang songs in the 1971 cult flick Peace Killers where a biker gang terrorizes a hippie commune.

Royalty checks from ‘Windy’ allowed Ruthann to finally be able to pay her own rent, but she said that it didn’t change her life.  At this time, she was taking so many psychotropic drugs that she is amazed that she’s still standing upright.  She was just bopping around playing music with her friends, going up to San Francisco where she enjoyed hanging out with Janis, Ken Kesey, and The Dead, and also staying in Los Angeles where she met Steve Mann, Van Dyke Parks and Hoyt Axton.  She described it as kind of a gypsy life that a lot of people led at that time.  She was playing at Hoot nights at the Troubadour when she was sixteen, hanging out with Steve Mann and Hoyt Axton and doing some serious underage drinking and pot smoking.  She just felt this is what was expected to happen, but she never anticipated that it would happen.  She didn’t plan out her next step, figuring that this was where she was supposed to be.  People analyzing this song, said it was about her hippie boyfriend up in San Francisco, but she said that she never had a hippie boyfriend.  Ruthann said that ‘Windy’ was all about her when she was 25 at the time, and her fantasy about what kind of a guy she wanted to be with.  She said that a songwriter was annoying her at this time and she wanted to escape and think about somebody else, so she made up this person Windy.

Van Dyke Parks told her that if she wanted to be a professional all she had to do was make the commitment.  Van Dyke Parks introduced her to the guys in the Association and they were friends for a long time before she ever showed them a song.  The Association let her stay on a couch in their living room of their group house on Melrose Ave for a couple of weeks while she was looking for her own place.  After they had the hit ‘Along Comes Mary’, which was written by her good friend Tandyn Almer, they asked her if she had something for them.  She had just written ‘Windy’, and she told them that this song might be right up their alley, so she played it for them.  They liked it and said, “That’s the song” and they changed the lyrics to make it about a girl.  Most of her other songs in those days were very different from ‘Windy’, either being very folky or very jazzy, avant-garde psychedelic 1960s stuff, nothing remotely popish.  The album’s original producer Jerry Yester couldn’t believe that she wrote ‘Windy’ because all of her other songs were so unlike that.  Within a few weeks, they called her from the studio and said, “We have a hit here.  Come on and sing on the backups.”  So, she went in and she is the voice singing the blues licks.

The real stars of ‘Windy’ (and the album itself) were Hal Blaine and Joe Osborne, the famous session drummer/ bass player team, who create the driving force behind these songs.  Wrecking Crew keyboardist Larry Knechtel, guitarist Al Casey, and guitarist/sitarist Mike Deasy also played on this album.  This song was produced by Bones Howe, who made significant changes to Ruthann Friedman’s demo to give the song more pop appeal.  Bones Howe and Ray Pohlman, bass player of The Wrecking Crew, later ended up co-producing the album with The Association.  The song was written in waltz time, but Howe changed it. He also opened the song with the bassline, added the recorder solo, and had the group sing the “ba-ba-ba-ba-ba” backing vocals.

‘Windy’ was one of 22 songs on a demo tape submitted by writer Ruthann Friedman to producer Bones Howe.  ‘Windy’ was written as a waltz in 3/4 time, and Howe loved it, but he couldn’t put out a waltz, so a new arrangement was written to a standard 4/4 beat.  Howe was the engineer on the Mamas and the Papas recordings of ‘Monday Monday’ and he was brought in to produce the Association’s third album after their second LP Renaissaner, failed to sell as many copies as Valiant Records expected it should.  Howe had success producing The Turtles on such songs as P.F. Sloan and Steve Barri’s ‘You Baby’ and Bob Dylan’s ‘It Ain’t Me, Babe’, but this song became Howe’s first #1 as a producer.  He would top the chart again with two more productions, ‘Aquarius/Let the Sunshine In’ and ‘Wedding Bell Blues’, both recorded by The 5th Dimension.

Who’s peekin’ out from under a stairway
Calling a name that’s lighter than air
Who’s bending down to give me a rainbow
Everyone knows it’s Windy

Who’s tripping down the streets of the city
Smilin’ at everybody she sees
Who’s reachin’ out to capture a moment
Everyone knows it’s Windy

And Windy has stormy eyes
That flash at the sound of lies
And Windy has wings to fly
Above the clouds (above the clouds)
Above the clouds (above the clouds)

And Windy has stormy eyes
That flash at the sound of lies
And Windy has wings to fly
Above the clouds (above the clouds)
Above the clouds (above the clouds)

Who’s tripping down the streets of the city
Smilin’ at everybody she sees
Who’s reachin’ out to capture a moment
Everyone knows it’s Windy

Who’s tripping down the streets of the city
Smilin’ at everybody she sees
Who’s reachin’ out to capture a moment
Everyone knows it’s Windy

Who’s tripping down the streets of the city
Smilin’ at everybody she sees
Who’s reachin’ out to capture a moment
Everyone knows it’s Windy

Who’s tripping down the streets of the city
Smilin’ at everybody she sees
Who’s reachin’ out to capture a moment
Everyone knows it’s Windy

Who’s tripping down the streets of the city
Smilin’ at everybody she sees
Who’s reachin’ out to capture a moment