Description

Offered for sale is a still sealed U.S. copy of It’s a Beautiful Day, the self-titled debut album by It’s a Beautiful Day.

About this copy: This copy of It’s a Beautiful Day is a 1969 U.S. pressing on the Columbia label.

As the album is sealed, the record is presumably new and unplayed. The label variation is unknown; It may have the original
“360° Sound” label or the later one that has “Columbia” repeated around the perimeter. (see photo)

The wrap is mostly intact; there are a couple of small tears in the wrap near the bottom center of the cover and the bottom left hand corner and tiny breaks in the wrap at the upper left and lower right corners.

A gorgeous copy of a classic 1960s LP, as this album is notoriously prone to cover wear.

Background: It’s a Beautiful Day came from San Francisco, but had a different sound from Quicksilver Messenger Service, the Grateful Dead, the Jefferson Airplane, or really, any other band from that area that emerged in the 1960s. Led by David LaFlamme, the band’s leader played a violin, which wasn’t an instrument that one often heard in rock music at the time.

The band’s self-titled debut LP remains their best-known album, and it reached #47 on the U.S. album charts. The track “White Bird” received regular airplay on FM radio for years after the album’s release, and continued to get airplay long after the album went out of print. Deep Purple made generous use of the melody from “Bombay Calling” to repurpose it as “Child in Time.”

The album also features one of the most iconic pieces of album cover art ever, and it remains our all-time favorite album cover.

AllMusic.com gave It’s a Beautiful Day 4 1/2 stars:

Although they are not one of the better-known San Francisco bands to have emerged from the ballroom circuit of the late ’60s and early ’70s, It’s a Beautiful Day were no less memorable for their unique progressive rock style that contrasted well with the Bay Area psychedelic scene. Led by David LaFlamme (flute/violin/vocals) and his wife, Linda LaFlamme (keyboards), the six-piece unit on this album vacillates between light and ethereal pieces such as the lead-off cut, “White Bird,” to the heavier, prog rock-influenced “Bombay Calling.” One of the most distinct characteristics of It’s a Beautiful Day is their instrumentation. The prominence of David LaFlamme — former violin soloist with the Utah Symphony and original member of Dan Hicks & His Hot Licks — adds a refinement to It’s a Beautiful Day’s sound. Likewise, the intricate melodies — mostly composed by the LaFlammes — are structured around the band’s immense virtuosity, a prime example being the exquisitely haunting harpsichord-driven “Girl With No Eyes.” It’s a Beautiful Day remains as a timepiece and evidence of how sophisticated rock & roll had become in the fertile environs of the San Francisco music scene.

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