Sunday, September 08, 2019

Ruby: BART



Ruby were a band formed by the former Creedence Clearwater Revival member Tom Fogerty, though the lead guitarist here is Randy Oda.

This is a great instrumental track and comes from the band's eponymous first album, issued in 1976.

It's also a fitting tribute to a public transport system: San Francisco's Bay Area Rapid Transit. All we British have is Finchley Central by the New Vaudeville Band.

If BART sounds oddly familiar, there may be a reason. It was often used by the BBC to accompany pages from Ceefax and before that it was the continuity music for the corporation's schools programmes.

It was a good choice. The way the main theme keeps returning gives you confidence that something is about to happen.

There is a story that Fogerty, seeing regular royalty cheques arriving from the UK, reasoned that the band must be racing up the charts over here and hurried to tour. He was disappointed at the reception they received.

1 comment:

Unknown said...

I love this track, heard it often when I was a kid in primary school in the TV room in the late 70's and early 80's but never knew what it was !