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LA Times on Continental Drifters

May 29, 2015

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Premiere: The Continental Drifters Revisit ‘The Mississippi’ on New Retrospective

By Randy Lewis

 

Continental Drifters
Continental Drifters, Hollywood, Calif., in 1992. (Greg Allen)

 

The Continental Drifters emerged from the fertile L.A. pop scene of the 1980s and ’90s, an ad hoc band of musicians mostly moonlighting from their “day bands,” to collaborate in a free-form environment at Raji’s nightclub in Hollywood.

The band that came to include Peter Holsapple (of The dB’s), Vicki Peterson (Bangles), Susan Cowsill (The Cowsills), Mark Walton (Giant Sand and The Dream Syndicate) as well as singer-songwriters Carlo Nuccio, Gary Eaton and Ray Ganucheau will now get another moment in the spotlight with the June 30 release of a new two-CD retrospective set Drifted: In the Beginning & Beyond from Omnivore Recordings.

The Times is premiering one of the 33 tracks on the new set, “The Mississippi,” an allegory written by Ganucheau and Nuccio and originally released in 1992 about exploring backwater vistas that lopes along on a ragged, rolling groove.