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VAL STOECKLEIN - GREY LIFE - CD

Val Stöecklein – Grey Life

1. Say It’s Not Over
2. Now’s The Time
3. I Can’t Have Yesterday
4. Color Her Blue
5. French Girl Affair
6. Morning Child
7. Possibility I Was Wrong
8. Seven Days Away From You
9. Sounds Of Yesterday
10. I’ll Make It Up To You
11. Second Ending
Bonus Tracks
12. All The Way Home
13. I Wonder Who I’ll Be Tomorrow

As leader of the legendary Blue Things, Val Stöecklein needs no introduction to fans of folk-rock and psychedelia. Stung by the band’s failure and traumatised by the collapse of a relationship, he channelled his sorrow into the songs that make up 1968’s Grey Life – the only solo album he would ever release. A nakedly emotional recording that has drawn comparisons with the work of Skip Spence, Syd Barrett and Scott Walker, it makes its CD debut here complete with both sides of his rare post-album 45, making it a must for fans of high quality singer-songwriting.

Val Stecklein is best known as leader and chief songwriter for the Blue Things, the intermittently brilliant mid-60s Kansas folk-rockers, whose album and string of singles have assured them a major cult reputation – yet for many it is this compelling LP that best defines his talent. Though the band were heroes in the Midwest, their failure to break nationally came as a bitter disappointment to the sensitive Stecklein, who suffered a breakdown shortly after they released the brilliant Orange Rooftop Of Your Mind / 24 Hour Cleaners 45 in 1967. Having left the band and suffered a traumatic romantic split, he spent time in Kansas’s Menninger Clinic, where he was diagnosed as a manic depressive (the symptoms of which had been exacerbated by alcohol and LSD use).

The following year he travelled to Los Angeles, adding an ‘ö’ to his name as if further to distance himself from the past. There he hooked up with producer Ray Ruff (for whose tiny Ruff Records label the Blue Things had recorded their first two singles, before signing to RCA in 1965). Ruff was now an A&R man for Dot Records, and signed Stöecklein up as soon as he heard his songs. Grey Life was recorded over a month at LA’s Gold Star studios, that year. Accompanying himself on a 12-string guitar, Stöecklein’s fragile vocals and morose lyrics reflected his inner turmoil, but the songs were melodic and appealing. Somewhat incongruously, however, Ruff hired big band arranger Dick Hieronymous to provide arrangements, and his overblown contributions swamp the plaintive music at times.

When the album was released to dismissive reviews, Stöecklein couldn’t face touring to promote it. It has been suggested that this was because he was upset with the finished product, and without his support the extracted single (Sounds Of Yesterday / Say It’s Not Over) failed to pick up airplay, and the non-LP follow-up (included here as bonus tracks) suffered the same fate. Unsurprisingly, the album bombed. An unlikely, and perhaps unwelcome, tribute was paid him the following year when one of its tracks, Now’s The Time, appeared on The Touch Of Leonard Nimoy, recorded by Star Trek’s Dr. Spock and also released on Dot. After contributing to two further Ruff projects (the eccentric Environment / Evolution, released under the name ‘Ecology’ on Happy Tiger in 1970, and Contemporary Rock Opera by Truth Of Truths, released on Oak the following year), Stöecklein largely withdrew from the music industry.

In years to come he would have songs covered by Pat Boone and Hank Williams Jr. (again through the Ray Ruff connection) and played on a few sessions (often under the pseudonym ‘Oskar Solomon’), but he became more withdrawn as time went by. Despite demoing around 50 songs in the 1980s and making a few efforts to perform again (in an increasingly C&W-oriented vein), no more music ever appeared under his name. A brief move to Nashville proved unproductive, and he was soon back at home in Hutchinson, Kansas. The release of three separate compilations of Blue Things material in 1987 prompted a resurgence of interest in the band, but Stöecklein wasn’t in a position to capitalise on it, and tragically took his own life in May 1993.

All words and music by Val Stöecklein

Produced by Ray Ruff

Arranged by Dick Hieronymous

Engineered by Jimmy Hilton (Gold Star, Hollywood) and Larry Cox (Wally Heider, Hollywood)

Photography by Rod Dyer

Original artwork by Christopher Whorf

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