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January 2005 Press

The fall of 2004 marks the 25th anniversary of The Crazy Planet Band, aka Planète Folle in French. The original idea for this CD was to put out a “Best Of” Compilation. But that idea had to blend with the need to put out some new topical songs by Vic Sadot and some musical interpretations of some of the late Jean-Henri Sadot’s poems. The first band formation was actually called C. P. Swampgrass. They played at a party at Frog Town Farm in Newark, DE. This line-up had the late Joe Sadot on banjo, Craig Maurer on fiddle, and Vic Sadot on vocals and acoustic guitar. In the autumn of 1979 The Crazy Planet Band played it’s first of 25 consecutive annual concerts at Newark Community Day and its first paying gig at the Deer Park Tavern. That line up had Vic on vocals and guitar, Rob Sadot on electric guitar, Paul Slivka on bass, and Jim Hannum on drums. Paul and John went off to work with the exciting new band called the MIB’s led by Jones Purcell who had just moved up from South Carolina.

Paul and Jimmy went on to play with Tommy Conwell and the Young Rumblers. Rob Chirnside stepped forward to the drum duties and Roberta Greenspan came on with her fiddle, and Paul Slivka continued on long enough to do a studio project with us. In 1985 that resulted in our first release, a 45 rpm with Good Time Delaware on the A side and Born To Win on the B side. Great cover art was provided by Michael Schwartz and Debbie Hegedus. These two songs were re-mastered in the spring of 2004 by our long time friend and original studio engineer Michael Fisher to be released in this digital collection. WVUD DJ Mac Thomas deserves a salute from us for bringing that song back to public attention by playing it on his Tuesday morning Java Time “Cruising America” radio show and at car club events that he DJ’s as well.

Crazy Planet Band released a 12 song LP in 1988 called Ride the Wind, which featured awesome cover art by C. S. Wayne. In addition to Vic and Rob Sadot and Rob Chirnside, we had Tris Hovanec on bass and Ed Gorski on keyboards and piano accordion on our first Cajun French original called Belle Amie. In addition to the title cut, we’ve included such songs as the pop rocker Comeback Kids, the sizzling blues guitar of Beer Muscles, and the reggae influenced torch song called Need To Know. One song recorded during those sessions but not released was Vic’s tribute to the late great Phil Ochs. Now Broadside Balladeer will finally get a hearing as well as figuring in the title of this latest CD.

Rob had to leave the band around 1990, yet he still found time to add his guitar to the recording of "Vive Haiti!" The song was never released, but it was sung at demonstrations in Washington and Philadelphia, and it was the cover song of an issue of Broadside, The National Topical Song Magazine. Vic teamed up with Kenny Thompson on keyboards, George Dreisbach on guitar, and Brian Heckman on drums to record a tribute to roadies and roadwork called Respect for the Road. That was never released until now either. Vic had always kept up with the French language and music of his father’s native land, and that included visits to France and Quebec.

In 1992 Vic traveled to New Orleans and through the many towns of Acadiana to the west of the “Crescent City”. He was delighted to find that many people in southwest Louisiana still spoke French and celebrated their Cajun and Creole culture, cuisine, and music in towns with such names as Lafayette, Eunice, Mamou, Houma, Breaux Bridge, Church Point, Opelousas, Basile, Lake Charles, Port Arthur, Abbeyville, Thibodaux, and Ville Platte. He met and traveled with Danny Collet & the Swampcats, and he learned Faire l’Amour Dans Le Poulailler (Making Love In the Chicken Coop) from their guitarman Fabian Champagne of Carencro. Vic came back excited about working in some Cajun/Zydeco into a mostly original repertoire. He soon re-vamped the band line-up under the name of Planète Folle, which is just Crazy Planet in French. It rhymes with “roll” and you can remember how to pronounce it by saying this rhyme, “Let the good times roll…with Planète Folle!”

After some personnel changes over a two year recording process, Vic Sadot’s Planète Folle released a 16 song CD titled Comin’ Home in 1997. Mike Reynolds took on the piano accordion duties. Dave Sumner was the solid guitarist driving a rhythm section that featured the legendary Chris Sherlock on drums and Monty Cullum on bass. Saxophone chops were provided by Hank Carter of George Thorogood & the Destroyers fame, as well as the talented Earle Brown and Joe Yakaneck. Michael Salzburg and Dennis Herzog contributed their fine fiddle licks to several songs. From the Ride the Wind collection we’ve brought along Vic’s tribute to Bourbon Street and the title cut by the late Zydeco roots man Clifton Chenier. However, Vic created a French translation to that song as well as singing it in its original English lyrics. In the year 2000 Vic teamed up with Dean A. Banks and Mark Moss to put together a collection of acoustic and environmental songs titled Songs of the Seasons. It was only released as a limited edition home burn collection. From Seasons we’ve included Our Only Chesapeake and Berceuse De Bonne Nuit (Good Night Lullaby on this Broadsides & Retrospectives collection.

Two brand new Vic Sadot topical songs kick off this CD: Mad Cowboy Disease and Are You A Citizen, which was co-written with local activist Cindy Hubschmitt. Vic put two more of his father’s poems to music. To his father’s tribute to those who fought on D-Day 1944 titled In Normandy When Breezes Blow, Vic added a new section called Our Pledge To You. To the poem Jean-Henri Sadot wrote about remembering the Pyrenees Mountains in 1940, Vic set that Spanish language poem to music, and Dean A. Banks came up with a trumpet section on his synthesizer. In 2002 Dean A. Banks proposed making a website of Jean-Henri Sadot’s poems and memoirs. In 2003 Lionel Bernard of Normandy, France visited the website and was inspired to set Jean-Henri Sadot’s Statue of Liberty to music with his friend Jerome Pannier singing. They sent it to Vic and other parts by Vic, Rob and Dean were added stateside. Then Dean A. Banks set Jean-Henri Sadot’s Little Girl’s Bedtime to music and recorded it with Vic and Rob Sadot and Dean singing the lead vocal. Vic brought in Ellen Lebowitz to put the finishing touches on these songs with her background vocals. And there you have it! A collection that really does add up to its name…Broadsides & Retrospectives. We hope you enjoy it and that it is a source of pleasure and progressive inspiration to our listeners.