United Artists Records, 1973
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George Gerdes (1948-2021) spent over 30 years playing bit parts on television series, including “X-Files” and “NYPD Blue,” as well as taking on small roles in films, such as “The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo” and “Amistad.”
Prior to all of this, George cut a couple records in the early 1970s that went largely unnoticed in the United States while making a slightly bigger splash in England. Released on United Artists, Gerdes first album, Obituary, was unveiled via a live performance in England by the man himself right before a screening of UA’s most recent picture, Frank Zappa’s “200 Motels”. The album received enough critical praise and overall “buzz” to justify UA funding a follow-up release.
Gerdes, working with producer Nick Venet (The Beach Boys, Bobby Darin, Sam Cooke, Linda Ronstadt, Karen Dalton, The Walker Brothers, Lou Rawls), requested that the instrumental personnel for his sophomore release be none other than the session musicians from Bob Dylan’s Blonde on Blonde. The times afforded this luxury to be so, and in summer of 1972, Gerdes found himself in Nashville recording Son of Obituary with legendary Area Code 615 session players such as Charlie McCoy, Henry Strzelecki, and Kenny Buttrey.
The result was a record quite ahead of its time, a brand of country rock/pop that veers a bit more toward eccentric than early country rock musicians like Gram Parsons and Michael Nesmith.