Jerry Yester - Pass Your Light Around (2017)

15 previously unissued tracks recorded throughout the 1970s.

In the ’60s and ’70s, it was not rare to see Jerry Yester’s name on classic albums. Whether producing acts like The Association, The Turtles, Tim Buckley, or Tom Waits, or hearing him in bands like The Modern Folk Quartet, Rosebud, The Lovin’ Spoonful, or with Judy Henske on the (now) classic Farewell Aldebaran—aside from a pair of 1967 singles, there wasn’t a Jerry Yester “solo album” from that period, as he was so busy creating music with and for other artists.

Pass Your Light Around collects the songs recorded in various studios throughout the 1970s (and even one dating back as far as 1964 from his Bleeker Street apartment). The songs were written with poet/ lyricist and Tim Buckley collaborator Larry Beckett (who he got to know while producing Buckley’s Goodbye And Hello and Happy Sad), and feature performances by Yester, Rosebud bandmates David Vaught and John Seiter, future Lone Justice member Don Heffington, and even Laurel Masse from The Manhattan Transfer, among others. In true Yester fashion, the instrumentation moves from classic guitar based instrumentation to strings, celeste, harmonium and synthesizer.

Produced by Jerry Yester with Grammy® Award-winner Cheryl Pawelski, the sources for all the tracks were pulled from Jerry’s personal archives, and mastered by Grammy®-winning engineer Michael Graves. These 15 previously unissued tracks act as what could, and should have been another Yester-tagged classic, but this time under his own name. Packaging contains photos, lyrics, and a new essay from Barry Alfonso detailing the genesis of the songs and recordings, augmented by new interviews with both Yester and Beckett.

While it may have taken over 40 years to hear it, as Alfonso says in his liner notes, “What matters is that this remarkable music is available after four decades of obscurity. The light never dimmed. Now it’s finally ready to be shared.”