Pearls Before Swine - Biography
Pearls Before Swine are a psychedelic folk rock from Melbourne, Florida, formed in 1965 by Tom Rapp, along with friends Wayne Harley, on mandolin and banjo, Roger Criddinger, on piano and organ, and Lane Lederer, on bass and guitar. Lederer now plays oboe with Tampa Bay's Florida Orchestra. Rapp once turned down an offer to perform at Woodstock because he did not want to leave his then home in Holland.
Rapp was in a local record store when he saw some Fugs records on the ESP-Disk label. He purchased them and was amazed by the similarities to his own band's sound. ESP was home to strange, avant garde and free jazz groups such as the Fugs, Godz, Holy Modal Rounders, Albert Ayler, Sun Ra and Ornette Coleman. Although Pearls Before Swine were still quite young, they sent a lathe demo to ESP. They received a response saying that, although the demo was pressed so poorly that it could barely be heard, it sounded like something they would want to work with. ESP's business model consisted of giving recording artists very little budget but in turn allowing them complete control of the record and artwork. Pearls Before Swine may have gotten the smallest budget of all, at first. They were booked into a two track studio, that mainly made country music demos, and the results were awkward and unusable. ESP was forced to rerecord the album and this time alloted them a $1500 budget in 1967, equivalent to about $10,000 today. They recorded their first album, One Nation Underground (1967 ESP-Disk) in 4 days at Impact Sound Studios in New York. Although ESP-Disk had no reason to expect it, the album became the highest selling album on the label ever. Due to poorly kept records the exact sales figures are not known but estimates have landed between 100,000 and 250,000 copies. Being victims of typical music business dealings, Rapp and crew barely saw any of the money. This album was probably Rapp's most psychedelic. It had strange arrangements of songs, purposefully overmixed farfisa organ and amazing lyrics that were far more poetic and artistic than most of Rapp's contemporaries.
Their next album was Balaklava (1968 ESP-Disk) which, though less psychedelic, was still a fierce statement about society and had more of Rapp's literary approach. Rapp meant it to be a thematic anti-war statement. Balaklava is in reference to the Charge of the Light Brigade in the Crimean War in 1854 and is a metaphor for the uselessness of all wars.
In 1969 Pearls Before Swine signed to Reprise Records and the next record was These Things Too, and was the one that marked the dismantling of the original line-up. Soon after, Rapp met a Dutch woman, Elisabeth, who would become his wife and move with him to Holland shortly after the releasing the record. Their subsequent album was The Uses of Ashes (1970 Reprise) which began Rapp's use of session musicians for his recording and touring. In may circles, the band began to be referred to as Tom Rapp's Pearls Before Swine. Next was the album City of Gold (1971 Reprise), which was officially credited to Thos. Rapp/Pearls Before Swine. This album was mostly comprised of leftover record from the previous album and drew heavily from Nashville's session music players.
Beautiful Lies You Could Live In (1971 Reprise) was the next album under the name Tom Rapp and Pearls before Swine. Rapp's wife, Elisabeth, would join him on vocal duties. At this point in Rapp's career the records he made as Pearls Before Swine became essentially solo records with hired backing bands. Beautiful Lies was followed by Rapp's first official solo record Familiar Songs (1972 Reprise), which was released by Reprise without Rapp's permission or knowledge. Stardancer (1972 Blue Thumb) marked both Rapp's second solo record as well as his first on his own label Blue Thumb. His last album of the era was Sunforest (1973 Blue Thumb).
In the 90's Rapp recorded one more album called A Journal of the Plague Year (1999 Woronzow Records). Indie superstars Damon & Naomi appeared on this album with him along with Nick Saloman of Bevis Frond.
