This Oneness
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This Oneness, aka "Goldstreet", from the August 1974 "Insider" Twin Cities music newspaper.
Douglas Nelson: Bass
Dale Strength: Guitar, Vocal
Cat
Greg Inhofer: Piano, Guitar, Vocal
Robyn Lee: Woodwinds, Keyboards, Vocal
John Ebert: Sound Systems
Yancy: Road-Man / Driver / Mime
These color images are from 1973 at Rudolph's on Lake Street and Franklin Avenue, Minneapolis.
The Minnesota based Jazz-Fusion-Rock "This Oneness" musicians consisted of Greg Inhofer, Dale Strength, (both from the band Pepper Fog), Robyn Lee, Doug Nelson, and Bernie Pershey, formerly of White Lightning. John Ebert was Sound Engineer with his owner-operator miniature "Wall of Sound" equipment. In the 1960s and 1970s, "pepper fog" was an aerial spray dispersed from helicopters over anti-war demonstrations that would make you eyes water, and I presume that is the inspiration for that bands name. This Oneness musical styles covered Mahavishnu Orchestra Birds of Fire and Chick Corea's "Return To Forever" Hymn of the Seventh Galaxy album (and was the opening act for Chick on the east coast once). This Oneness group also backed Olivia-Newton-John on her road tours in America from May 1974 through 1975, also appearing on the NBC Mar. 7th 1975 "Midnite Special" broadcast. The May 1974 midwestern colleges tour managed by Variety Theater International were Olivia's first American stage appearances. These very enthusiastic audience turnouts convinced everyone to go forward with her future musical endeavors in America. These early tours included one show at the 1975 Minnesota State Fair Grandstand racetrack stage to a record audience. The group played Harrah's South Shore Room at Lake Tahoe Nov. 6, 1975. While in town, William B. Harrah had the group out for a day trip on the lake in his 33 foot Chris Craft run-about outfitted with two 12 cylinder aircraft engines capable of a peak speed of 55 mph. In 1976 This Oneness desired to return their focus to writing and producing their "Surprize" album and work on promotion of the group once again. Leaving Olivia was not an easy emotional decision for the band to make. The band wrote "Song For Olivia" in parting.
Doug Nelson (wearing the glasses in the group photo) died unexpectedly in 2000 near McGregor, Minnesota and is missed by all who knew him. Dale, Gregg, and Robyn are in the Twin Cities area performing, Bernie is kicking the kit in various places around the U.S.A.
Gregg Inhofer of This Oneness (with "Cat" on his shoulder in group photo) once said during a performance that "You're just as much a part of it as, you know, with ah, with your feelings as anyone else, so...what can you say, you don't play to empty tables and chairs, right? Tables and chairs don't give off any emotion. I'd like to thank everybody for coming and donating their energy, um, cuz, you know, everybody can sense it, so....Thank-You".
Discography
This Oneness has produced a self-published album, "Surprize", which is out of print and a rare collectors item. The last asking price for one was $75 on Ebay in 2004.
Audio
I have located 3 boxes of color slides I shot from This Oneness live performances, 3 studio tapes (2 are rough mix "Surprize" pre-album recordings and are not "official" final-vinyl mixes but very close), and 1 rough live tape of the band as well. The tapes have been in cool, dark, low humidity storage for 33 years and are in very good condition. The magnetic oxide on the tape is studio grade on 2 of them, and there is no separation of the oxide from the tape as happens on older tapes. The 3rd tape is a complete live studio performance broadcast broadcast in the Twin Cities by KQRS. It has been encoded into 320 megabits per second .MP3 format and saved to CD.
The 4th tape is an good but weakly recorded live performance at Rudolph's on Lyndale & Franklin, but a compressor/Limiter expansion could recover a lot of the sound (and tape noise too unfortunately).
There are 8 songs on the live Rudolph's tape, your typical rough live recording but it captures the bands flavor:
1) Jazz style (unidentified title at this time)
2) Jazz style (unidentified title at this time)
3) "Bitches Crystal" lyrics by Emerson, Lake & Palmer "Tarkus" album (1971)
4) A piece predominately for flute (unidentified title at this time)
5) A King Crimson song (unidentified title at this time)
6) "Birds of Fire" (1973) from Mahavishnu Orchestra's second studio album by the same name
7) "Time is Just A Word" (1974) from This Oneness "Surprise" Album
8) "Tarkus" from British progressive rock band Emerson, Lake & Palmer second album by the same name (1971)
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