Wednesday's Forgotten Oldie...

Bob Lind's "Elusive Butterfly" was a smash hit in 1966, going to #5 in both the USA and the UK. It turned out to be the only hit for Lind. He wrote "Elusive Butterfly" as the sun was coming up after staying up all night. He says the song is about "The magic of the quest, the thrill of searching, even when that which is sought is hard to see." After signing a deal with Metro Music, Sonny Bono was assigned to work with Lind, but got busy and passed him off to Jack Nitzsche, who was known for his work with The Rolling Stones. "Elusive Butterfly" was one of the first songs they recorded, and Nitzsche came up with an innovative string arrangement, making this one of the first Folk-Rock songs to feature a string section. Los Angeles in the '60s was a great place to find talented session musicians, and some of the best appeared on this track, including Leon Russell on piano and Carol Kaye on bass. This was originally the B-side in America of the 23-year-old Bob Lind's recording debut. The A-side was "Cheryl's Goin' Home," and when a DJ on the Florida station WQAM flipped the record and started playing "Elusive Butterfly," it kickstarted the song's success. The song gave World Pacific Records its one and only big hit, however Bob's solo career lost impetus as World Pacific's choices for follow-up singles were terrible, and squandered the momentum of "Elusive Butterfly". Also plagued by drug and alcohol problems, Lind gained a reputation in the business for being "hard to work with." In 1969, Lind severed ties with World Pacific and dropped out of the music industry.

Lind returned to music in 2004 when, at the urging of his friend Arlo Guthrie, he played The Guthrie Center in Beckett, Mass. Since then Lind has been touring nonstop, playing England, Spain and Canada, as well as all over the USA.