Smoke From A Distant Fire

Johnny Townsend of Sanford-Townsend Band was kind enough to tell us about this song:
"In the spring of 1974 Ed Sanford and I had just signed a publishing deal with Chappell Music. They gave us a nice advance and a weekly stipend and for a couple of unknown writers, this was a rare deal. Ed and our friend Steven Stewart (co-writer on Smoke...) were sharing one half of an old duplex in Hollywood at the time. I used to drop by and hang out, write or whatever, almost on a daily basis. Now Steven was an aspiring classical guitarist at the time. He used to stay up 'til the wee hours, sometimes daybreak, bent over his music stand practicing his scales, or some classical piece.

He was driven to become a great player. I was over one morning as Ed was just waking up and Steven hadn't been to bed yet. Ed was complaining about not getting any sleep and barked at Steven, 'When are you gonna stop wasting your time on that classical crap and write something that will make you some money.' Steven picked up his guitar immediately and started playing what I thought was a really cool R&B type rhythm and replied with 'Anybody can write that crap.' I said, 'Apparently you just did' and went straight to the piano and embellished on his idea. While going through some old song ideas in my notebook I always carried, I found one that actually was the title of a poem that Ed had written while in college. I extracted the title because it seemed to be a perfect fit for the chorus idea I had and that all sort of amalgamated into Smoke From A Distant Fire.

Basically, the song started as a joke and that joke is still making us money to this very day.

I love songwriting I guess because I've always enjoyed puzzles, crosswords, anagrams and the like. It's different every time and I still couldn't tell you exactly where they come from. I think many of the great melodies are universal melodies that exist out in the cosmos somewhere and certain people have the knack of reaching out with their minds, hearts or spirits to bring them back to us." (Get more at johntown.com.)

This song was recorded at the famous Muscle Shoals Sound Studios in Sheffield, Alabama. Jerry Masters told us about the session: "I had the pleasure of recording this band and this song. It was without a doubt the best band I have ever worked with in my entire 50 year career as a recording engineer. It was also the last album I did before leaving Muscle Shoals Sound in 1976 and it was mixed by my good friend and excellent engineer Greg Hamm. It was the best album I've ever done and I consider it the peak of my career by being associated with these fine musicians and song writers. It was the perfect ending to a great career at Muscle Shoals Sound - not the end of my career, but still the best I ever put my hands to. I salute the Sanford-Townsend Band as the best of the best, even today, it's my favorite of all time."

Regarding the recording of this song, Townsend told us: "We had landed a publishing deal in 1974 and made demos with a lot of the great players of the day that again, caught the attention of another big time New York producer, Jerry Wexler. It was Wexler's idea to take the band to Shoals to record. This time we used our band with Barry Beckett as co-producer and musical supervisor. The experience was incredible. We had some of our friends from the Loggins and Messina band come in and play on the record. I got my younger brother Billy up from Tuscaloosa to help with background singing and we came up with quite a nice record. The most memorable song from that outing was 'Smoke From A Distant Fire.' Still a big favorite with a surprising amount of folks to this day."

Jerry Wexler from Atlantic Records produced this track. Johnny Townsend told us about working with Wexler: "What can you say about Jerry Wexler (alias Tex Wex) that hasn't been said. He discovered Ray Charles. He heard him backstage at the Apollo Theater and flew him to Atlanta and recorded him in a radio station there. He took Aretha from a so-so history at Columbia Records, signed her to Atlantic and helped create some of the greatest popular music ever recorded. He worked with what I will declare as my two favorite recording artists of all time. When the opportunity to work with him came up we didn't bat an eye. He was a god to us. He also had insights into the kind of music we all admired because he was there for most of it.

I remember being at MSS in front of the vocal mic, with him and Barry in the control room with Jerry Masters turning the knobs during the Sanford-Townsend Band sessions. My throat was a little weary and Jerry stopped everything for a minute to come out and talk with me. I got this image of myself as a struggling rookie pitcher for the New York Yankees being on the mound with Casey Stengel walking towards him. It was that intense. But Jerry's experience and insight said all the perfect things and helped me right my ship and finally get the best of what was in me for that particular song.

Jerry was not a musician. He couldn't read or play a note. I don't think he could even carry a tune. But he had those ears and he trusted them implicitly. More than anything else, that was his biggest strength. He just knew when it was right, and he knew the difference between something that was good and something that was great, and he could point the way to greatness.

On the business side, once a record was made, it could be in no better hands than his. His connections over the years and his business acumen, were second to none. He could put the record in the right hands that would see to it that it got it's shot. He did that with 'Smoke From A Distant Fire' and we just sat back and watched with amazement. I mentioned earlier about my Muscle Shoals experience being an educational one. When we were working with Wexler, it was graduate school."