Pok: It’s a Blue Sky Don’t Hold No Rain

It’s a Blue Sky Don’t Hold No Rain is a brand new release from Pok. It has been added to his Anthology album. It’s a Blue Sky Don’t Hold No Rain is now the new first track, although eventually there will be at least two more songs – as yet unfinished – that will come before it on the Anthology album.

It’s a Blue Sky Don’t Hold No Rain is one of the most historic, epic, amazing and important songs we have ever released. Pok wrote this when he was only seventeen years old and it is a remarkable creation from somebody so young.

We clearly remember the first time that Pok played his new song to some of the rest of the Wud posse. It was when he sat on a public bench late one dark evening, just down the hill from St Michael’s church, on Church Hill, Honiton. He was playing a 12-string acoustic guitar with only six strings on it.

Before It’s a Blue Sky Don’t Hold No Rain was released to Pok‘s growing Anthology album, it was performed by Laughing Sun, Spacegoats, Alchemeon, and by various of Pok‘s ensembles of friends.

One of the greatest moments of pure inspiration we have ever witnessed was the creation of the riffs section. It was way back in 1985, a few minutes before the recording of Laughing Sun‘s Cander version. You can enjoy Laughing Sun’s version of the song by clicking here.

It’s a Blue Sky Don’t Hold No Rain was played by the Spacegoats during their “Electric Elves” era, a term coined by Clive, around the turn from 1999 to 2000. You can enjoy their version of the song, performed live at Glastonbury Town Hall, by clicking here.

During the days of Alchemeon, Jim suggested reducing the number of times each riff was played to two of each rather than four, and we kept with Jim‘s arrangement in the Anthology version.

There are two Alchemeon recordings of It’s a Blue Sky Don’t Hold No Rain available for public listening. To hear the Winter 2008-09 version, please click here. For the Spring 2009 version, please click here.

We are all very pleased with the new Anthology version of It’s a Blue Sky Don’t Hold No Rain. It has taken somewhat longer than we anticipated to finish it. We have worked on it almost to the exclusion of everything else in our studios, ever since the release of Pok‘s Don’t Let It Pass You By, already six months ago. Many other things have had to wait for this epic to be finally finished.

There were several tracks of guitars, drums, bass, vocals and keyboards which were all scrapped and re-recorded during the course of creating this seminal recording.

Pok plays his Tanglewood acoustic and Gibson SG electric for the rhythm parts and is panned over to the right. Of the three guitar solos, Pok takes the second on his (subsequently stolen) Ibanez Roadstar II. It lies between the ‘riffs’ section and the ‘rain’ section.

On the left side of the stereo mix you can hear the Yamaha acoustic and Ibanez electric guitars of Fedax, who agreed after bribery to come out of musical retirement for a handful of Pok’s recordings. Fedax also plays the 12-string acoustic and takes the first lead guitar break, as well as the last guitar solo, which comes after the ‘rain’ section.

Josh worked particularly hard, constructing his keyboard parts by analyzing what Jim had done across several Alchemeon recordings, including several that remain in our vault and are not available to for public consumption. Eventually he put together a collection of parts that was a collage of a ‘best of Jim’ and a good dollop of Josh.

Josh used a number of different instruments, including a plonky old upright acoustic piano treated with much reverb and delay, his B3x organ (through a dirt pedal for the solo), a Fender Rhodes and a Wurlitzer. There are also some VST instruments – DSK’s Analog Matrix, Kriminal’s Twilight and the Waldorf Electronics A1.

Maxx is the glue and his somewhat understated bass sticks all of the strings to the rhythm section with beauty, precision and soul. Sven plays his golden spanglesome Slingerland jazz kit, which we didn’t damp too much. He had his eyes closed and a big grin as he made magic with three toms during the ‘rain’ section of the song.

We very much hope you will enjoy hearing this new version of this wonderful Pok classic. Please share it with your friends on social media so that they might enjoy it as well.

Soon we shall be working on Pok‘s next new release, as well as remixing and remastering more of his old classics that already make up his Anthology album. This became necessary once our studios had something of an upgrade, two years ago.

All of the Anthology tracks that have been reworked have been released at SoundCloud. You can hear them all by clicking here.

To read more about It’s a Blue Sky Don’t Hold No Rain and to read the official lyrics whilst listening, please click here to go to the page at the Explicit Music website.

If you would like to listen to it over at SoundCloud, please click here.

To download the song from Bandcamp, or to simply listen to it at that awesome website, please click here.

If you would like to visit Pok’s Anthology album page right here at the Wud Records website, please click here.