Could it be possible that IDAHO is a musical hotbed???
FAT CHANCE!!!, you're probably thinking...

Okay, okay, I think we can all agree that Idaho hasn't exactly been on the cutting edge when it comes to trends. No record company executives have ever swarmed the Gem State looking for the "next Beatles", the "next "Rolling Stones", or even the next "Milli Vanilli". It is sad to report that there probably is no such thing as the "Idaho Sound". No real music which is representative of potato fields, burning grasslands, or below-zero temperatures in January.

However, there are those of you who may not know that, back in the early '60's, a young burgermeister named Paul Revere and his ol' buddy Mark Lindsay got together in Boise, and found they shared a common musical dream. Voila, all of a sudden (well, somewhere on down the line anyway), Paul Revere and the Raiders were born. So it's nice to say that the Gem State had a hand in that situation.

Face it, without IDAHO, there may never have been such Raiders classics as "Just Like Me", "Don't Take It So Hard", or "Cinderella Sunshine". And, perhaps Idaho is somewhat of a fashion trendsetter. Had Mark Lindsay not become a Raider, he might not have grown a ponytail. Of lesser stuff, legends and non-legends alike are made. But even though I've been long-winded about the Raiders here, that's not who this post is about...

I was shopping in a 2nd-hand store recently...and I found one of those "unheard-of", "underground" record albums by a group I'd never heard of. The cool thing about new people coming up to this area, is that the vinyl they contribute to the 2nd hand stores can be really-out-of-the-way stuff that you could only find in major metro markets, not a "mainstream" location like Idaho.

See the title of this post? "Fat Chance"? Well, that's the name of the group who recorded the album I found. So I was looking at the back of the album, where all the credits are for producers, supporters, assistants, etc., and last in their list of thank-you's was a tip of the hat to "our friends in Idaho." Huh? What? Idaho? I mean, this group's album was on RCA Victor, a big nationwide label.

So, I looked up "Fat Chance" on the internet; I "googled" 'em, and this group is so obscure that within the zillions of Google cyber-files, there were only about 4 or 5 really brief entries concerning the group, "Fat Chance". It seems the band members all met up in Boise, Idaho, and gigged around the Pacific Northwest, and I guess "someone who knew someone" referred them to "someone else" who heard them and told RCA about 'em, and they got to make an album. Here is a picture of that album...

Here it is, "FAT CHANCE" (their first, and as far as I know, only album). And, this group is/was pretty good! In addition to having guitar, keyboards, bass and drums, there's also a trumpet/flugelhorn player and another guy who plays woodwinds. Their material sounds like "Chicago" or "Chase" in places; some of it reminds me of the Box Tops, and some of it is sweetly acoustic in nature.

Seems there were two main writers in this group, Steve Eaton, the guitarist (he's recorded a few CD's down thru the years), and Bill LaBounty, who has become a songwriter of note; he's written several chart hits for others, and co-wrote two songs that Peter Cetera sang; those songs ended up on Cetera's 1983 album, "One More Story". LaBounty also has a bunch of CD's out, and he even has his own website.

Well, not every musician can hit the top of the charts all of the time, but it looks like at least two members of this group kept their hands "in the business" and managed to scratch out livings for themselves. Whether the rest of the group members are now dishwashers or burger-flippers, or even still alive, who knows? I was surprised at how good the "Fat Chance" album was, and I suppose, if nothing else, the other band members can tell others, "Hey, I cut a record once!"

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I've come to the conclusion that "I must be slipping"...no one's left any comments on my last 3 or 4 posts. Perhaps my readers subscribe to the old adage, "if ya ain't got nuttin' nice to say, don't say nuttin", and if that's the case, well, I'm not sure how to respond to that. But there's a pretty fresh post under this one. Not "Fresh" as opposed to "Stale", rather, "Fresh", meaning I wrote it only 12 hours ago. Now I'm getting neurotic. That's what I get for wearing my heart on my blog.