ed askew
RAINY DAY SONG is the first release of new Ed Askew material since Ed Askew/Ask the Unicorn (ESP-Disk, 1968). The scarcity of commercially available Ed Askew albums belies an artist in perpetual bloom - painter and songwriter poet. After graduating from Yale Art School in 1966 Ed began teaching art in New Haven and shortly thereafter released his eponymous debut (later re-named Ask the Unicorn). Ed Askew recorded a follow up called Little Eyes that ESP-Disk chose, for unknown reasons, not to release (This album was finally issued on CD in 2007 by De Stijl Records).
And now forty years have passed since the original ESP-Disk release and Ed Askew has a formidable backlog of unreleased music. Rainy Day Song, his most recent work, was recorded in the summer of 2007 in New York City, where Ed has lived since moving there from New Haven in the 1980s. He says: “When I start a song it’s a kind of virgin situation. There are certain things I do and I have my character like everybody has their character. But I believe on some level that it comes from nothing … there are certain things you do … but in a sense: who does it?”
