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Liner Notes

 It's a Mighty Echoes rehearsal night. The new album, their third, has just been put to bed, and the vibes are expectant and happy. The new guy in the group is the tall, dark haired stranger lurking in the vestibule of Harvey's Echo Park home, the man with the unlikely but true name of Keith Joe Dick.

 Keith confesses to having been born in the Bible Belt and raised in the Rust Belt near Cleveland, Ohio. "My brother Kenny & I would sing along to songs by the Drifters and Sam Cooke on the AM radio". Keith's 70's odyssey took him to Tucson's Invisible Theater and to Beach Blanket Babylon in San Francisco. He moved to L.A. in 1980 and formed Keith Joe Dick and the Dickettes, "a neo-schmaltzy-pop cover band". Coincidentally, Keith used to play at the Olio Theater in Silverlake, birthplace of The Mighty Echoes. It was there that first heard them sing, way back when.

 Keith's powerful stage presence led to a film career that ranges from Ghoulies to Kurt Vonnegut's Breakfast of Champions. He also sang in Bruce Willis's band, The Accelerators. In 2000, he hooked up with the Echoes. "The best part is being in the room when the voices are all blending. It's a gas!"

 Jon Rubin arrives and I ask what's new? "Probably my greatest musical moment! My friend Tommy (Echoes producer/arranger and fellow Rubinoo) and I performed as soloists with the Netherlands Philharmonic, singing the Flo and Eddie parts from Frank Zappa's 200 Motels. I've also been working on the new Rubinoos album, Crimes Against Music. www.rubinoos.com.

 We sang on an African cruise too," chimes in Charlie. "In April of 2000, the Echoes sailed from Mombasa to Cape Town. We went on safari and sang Why Do Fools Fall in Love to the Masai, and then they made us sing The Lion SleepsTonight".

 Wearing an ironic smile, Harvey hands me ace compiler Hal Willner's recent project, New Prohibition. www.newprohibition.com The Echoes contribution? A tune titled "Music's So Much Better...." "And don't forget we sang the National Anthem at Dodger Stadium says Harvey. That was a great thrill." Even the TV newsmen from Japan deep in the tunnel under the stadium were enchanted that night as the Mighty Echoes warmed up. And you will be too as you encounter their latest and greatest collection of golden oldies, timeless memory-ticklers from when pop had melody, humor and soul.

-Roger Steffens, actor, music historian and reggae mensch www.reggaesupersite.com, turned 60 in 2002 and assures, "I can still boogaloo."