Taylor Daukas
I first heard Norma Tanega's music in the summer of 2022 and was pretty quickly hooked. There is a variety of depth in her songs but they are all held together by her personal warmth, concise humor, and joy that shines through in her music.
Favorite track: If I Only Had a Name Like Norma Tanega.
sisterray95
Only recently discovered Norma Tanega through What We Do in the Shadows - turns out she's a fantastic, criminally underrated songwriter and it's wonderful to see her finally get her dues.
Loudersoft
This puts a spotlight on an artist so vital that it seems a like a comet on trajectory to hit the earth missed by inches. Norma's songs are folk songs of both innocence & awareness, perfect time capsules unscathed by time and, if anything, stronger with age. You must buy this immediately.
Favorite track: Sunday Morning.
Stuart Charlesworth
I really hope that this LP is followed up with more releases. She is brilliant and I’m so glad to have found her! If you’ve got this, get the Walking my Cat Named Dog LP too!
Favorite track: Love Is Such a Happy Thing.
jasonbeers
A wonderful collection. I bought the double lp on coloured vinyl, but i really wish I could get the "Dead' Man's Wife" track digitally somehow without essentially rebuying the album. That really sucks.
Favorite track: Maggie My Dog.
Double LP housed in widespine jacket with poly-lined inner sleeves. Transparent light blue and baby pink splatter color vinyl. Includes 18-page booklet containing liner notes and never-before-seen photos and ephemera. Limited to 500 copies worldwide.
**ATTENTION**
DIGITAL DOWNLOAD ONLY INCLUDES TRACKS 15-16, 18-20, 22-26
Includes unlimited streaming of I’m the Sky: Studio and Demo Recordings, 1964–1971
via the free Bandcamp app, plus high-quality download in MP3, FLAC and more.
ships out within 2 days
Purchasable with gift card
$38.99USDor more
Record/Vinyl + Digital Album
Double LP housed in widespine jacket with poly-lined inner sleeves. Includes 18-page booklet containing liner notes and never-before-seen photos and ephemera.
**ATTENTION**
DIGITAL DOWNLOAD ONLY INCLUDES TRACKS 15-16, 18-20, 22-26
Includes unlimited streaming of I’m the Sky: Studio and Demo Recordings, 1964–1971
via the free Bandcamp app, plus high-quality download in MP3, FLAC and more.
ships out within 2 days
Purchasable with gift card
$38.99USDor more
Compact Disc (CD) + Digital Album
Double CD housed in jacket with two printed inner sleeves. Includes 28-page booklet containing liner notes and never-before-seen photos and ephemera.
**ATTENTION**
DIGITAL DOWNLOAD ONLY INCLUDES TRACKS 15-16, 18-20, 22-26
Includes unlimited streaming of I’m the Sky: Studio and Demo Recordings, 1964–1971
via the free Bandcamp app, plus high-quality download in MP3, FLAC and more.
ships out within 2 days
Purchasable with gift card
$19.99USDor more
Book/Magazine
In addition to her accomplishments as a gifted musician and songwriter, Norma Tanega was a noted gallerist, teacher, and a central figure in the vibrant and homegrown creative scene of Claremont, California. She was also a visual artist of astonishing originality. In Try to Tell a Fish About Water, the bold colors and gestural immediacy of Tanega’s paintings are presented for the first time alongside unseen photos, illustrations, journal entries, and other ephemera. Featuring reflections and remembrances from Norma’s friends and collaborators collaged alongside the visual roadmap, Try to Tell a Fish About Water is a thoughtful exploration of Tanega’s art career and a testament to a life spent immersed in creativity.
Softcover
9 inches x 10 inches
150 pages
ISBN: 9781944860356
ships out within 2 days
Purchasable with gift card
$40USD
Streaming + Download
Includes unlimited streaming via the free Bandcamp app, plus high-quality download in MP3, FLAC and more.
Norma Tanega’s I’m the Sky: Studio and Demo Recordings, 1964–1971 is a comprehensive survey of the pioneering folk artist’s two commercially released studio albums, an unreleased album, and a trove of unheard demos.
Before playing a pivotal part in folk music’s cultural crossover in the ‘60s, Tanega was a curious little girl born at the very end of the ‘30s to a multicultural Navy family in Long Beach, California. Her parents often brought her to Los Angeles for piano lessons, and eventually Tanega earned an MFA at Claremont College, where she studied classical composers like Aaron Copeland and George Gershwin. Amidst her academic pursuits, Tanega learned to play acoustic guitar and autoharp by following Joan Baez records and hanging out at the Folk Music Center, a music store and performance space in Claremont that exists to this day.
After college, Tanega landed in Greenwich Village in 1963, and became active in the coffee house scene and early protests against the Vietnam War. Working summers as a camp counselor in the Catskill Mountains, the up-and-coming producer and arranger Herb Bernstein caught Tanega perform at the camp, and introduced her to songwriter Bob Crewe. The trio found their first collaborative success in 1966 when Tanega’s “Walkin’ My Cat Named Dog” rocketed to #22 on the American and British charts (#3 in Canada). Her debut full-length of the same name followed that year, which saw her perform on Dick Clark’s American Bandstand and Where The Action Is, and tour North America with artists including Gene Pitney and Bobby Goldsboro.
That same year, Tanega traveled to England to tour in support of Walkin’ My Cat Named Dog. During rehearsals for the British music television show Ready Steady Go!, Tanega met Dusty Springfield. The pair became fast friends, then partners in a committed long-distance relationship. Tanega moved to London to be with Springfield, for whom she also went on to write and co-write a number of songs.
While in London, in 1969 Tanega recorded Snow Cycles, a second album that would never see the light of day, and I Don’t Think it Will Hurt if You Smile, eventually released with little fanfare in 1971. As heard on the first half of I’m the Sky, the same whimsical and joy-filled spirit guides all three of Tanega’s studio albums, and provides a colorful stage for her idiosyncratic meter and songwriting. Tanega’s lyrics touch on love and adoration to introspection and melancholy, while her music offers an eclectic take on popular folk-rock and psychedelic sound of the late ‘60s.
The second half of I’m the Sky opens a rare and intimate window into Tanega’s songwriting process with a collection of demos discovered in Tanega’s Claremont home. Unfettered by instrumentation save for a single guitar on most songs, Tanega’s voice soars across the mid-range and above the six string reverberations, openly musing on life and love. More than merely sketches, the demos capture an essence of Tanega’s songcraft, and a tangible translation of the emotional range which sets her work apart from the banality in certain folk music of the era.
In 1972, Tanega returned to Claremont and shifted focus to her visual arts, teaching ESL, and participating in her surrounding community of LGBTQ experimental artists. She kept recording and performing music with a number of local groups as well. While Tanega, who passed away in 2019 at the age of 80, is essential to California’s legacy of folk and experimental music, she’s also essential to the canon of folk-rock writ large. Tanega left behind an exceptional catalog of music encapsulated in part on I’m the Sky, but, more than anything, she left an enduring expression of what it means to be free.
credits
released May 6, 2022
**ATTENTION**
DIGITAL DOWNLOAD ONLY INCLUDES TRACKS 15-16, 18-20, 22-26
Complete tracklist on 2xLP / 2xCD formats:
01. Jubilation
02. Now Is the Time
03. Walkin' My Cat Named Dog
04. Elephants, Angels and Roses
05. A Street That Rhymes at 6 AM
06. I'm Dreamin' a Dream
07. I'm the Sky
08. Cowfold
09. When It Touches You, a Snowflake Dies
10. Magic Day
11. You're Dead
12. Stranger
13. What More in This World Could Anyone Be Living For (Version 2)
14. A Goodbye Song
15. Love Is Such a Happy Thing
16. Sunday Morning
17. No One
18. Time Becomes Gray
19. Solar Winds
20. Who Are You
21. Illusion
22. Maggie My Dog
23. If I Only Had a Name Like Norma Tanega
24. La Jolla
25. In Between Changes
26. A Song For a Friend Who Died
27. What More in This World Could Anyone Be Living For (Demo Version)
28. Deaf Man’s Wife (CD-Only Bonus Track)
supported by 42 fans who also own “I’m the Sky: Studio and Demo Recordings, 1964–1971”
I didn’t even know I was looking for this record, and then it found me. Holy cow, it’s so great. Drum machine and a variety of keyboards, the occasional overdubbed layers of understated vocals, and little skeletons of songs that sound terrific just the way they are. A minimalist odyssey for sure. Markly Morrison
“Write The Soil Lighter” is full of beguilingly mysterious folk-adjacent music, shrouded in shadow and atmospherics. Bandcamp New & Notable Apr 30, 2023
