Blue Sky

Barry Greenfield was only 22 when he went to Hollywood to record Blue Sky, but the songs had already travelled a considerable distance. Some went back to his teenage years, others to his time in England with Graham Gouldman and the musicians who would become 10cc, and several had already been heard on Canadian radio. RCA put him together with producer David Kershenbaum, arranger Jimmie Haskell and a remarkable group of Los Angeles musicians including Larry Carlton, Joe Osborn, Jim Gordon, Russ Kunkel and Dean Parks. The result was a sophisticated studio album that still sounded very much like Barry Greenfield.

At the centre of Blue Sky are the songs. Greenfield was already writing about subjects that were not common territory for a young pop singer. "Sweet America" had begun several years earlier as a response to the Vietnam War. Its first recording was made at Strawberry Studios in England with Graham Gouldman, Eric Stewart, Kevin Godley and Lol Creme, and became Tony Blackburn's BBC Record of the Week in 1971. Greenfield returned to the song for Blue Sky, this time with Kershenbaum, Haskell and the RCA musicians surrounding it. Record Collector later described it simply and accurately as a Vietnam War protest song.

Its American release came at an awkward moment. Greenfield later recalled that "Sweet America" entered the Billboard chart at No. 54 with a bullet and was being added in major American markets when returning prisoners of war began arriving home from North Vietnam. Suddenly a song critical of the war was a difficult record for American radio. Greenfield said RCA flew him to Los Angeles, where he spent two days speaking to program directors, roughly 30 calls a day, trying to explain that the song was not an attack on America. The programmers liked the record, he remembered, but many simply would not play an anti-Vietnam song at that moment.

There is no mistaking the affection underneath "Sweet America." Greenfield was criticizing a country he admired, not dismissing it. That tension is part of what makes the song work. Years later Buffy Sainte-Marie heard something in it as well. In 1976 she recorded both "Sweet America" and "Free the Lady", another song from Blue Sky, and made Sweet America the title of her album. Her official discography credits both songs to Greenfield.

"New York Is Closed Tonight" came from similar instincts. Greenfield wrote about a New York of smog, garbage, homelessness, pollution and urban decay, but he was using the city as something larger. He later said that New York represented many of the world's polluted cities. The song had already given him his breakthrough in Canada before he returned to it at RCA, where Carlton, Osborn, Jim Gordon, Dean Parks, Larry Muhoberac and Gene Estes helped build the 1973 version heard on Blue Sky.

The song acquired a second life that Greenfield could never have imagined when he wrote it. Following the attacks of September 11, 2001, its images of a damaged and closed New York suddenly carried another meaning. Greenfield later recalled that CNN and other television coverage used the song against images from that day. A 2025 StoryBeat profile also recounts CNN playing "New York Is Closed Tonight" with footage of the Twin Towers. Greenfield subsequently revisited the song himself, incorporating September 11 news material into a later recording.

Not everything on Blue Sky looks outward. "Free the Lady" had been written when Greenfield was still a teenager, with thoughts of his mother and some of the unhappiness he had seen in her life. "How Long Can You Give Love," "Suicide," "Jack and Jill" and "My Last Blues" move the record into much more personal territory. "Concert Fever" brings some of Greenfield's humour into the picture. Taken together, the eleven songs sound less like an attempt to manufacture a hit album than a young songwriter putting several years of his life onto a record.

Kershenbaum and Haskell gave those songs considerable room. Carlton's guitar is present throughout without overwhelming Greenfield's acoustic playing, while Jim Gordon and Russ Kunkel divide the drum chair and Joe Osborn anchors the entire album on bass. There are strings, keyboards and percussion where the songs need them, but Blue Sky never becomes a showcase for session musicians. The musicians serve the writing.

The album should have had a much larger life in 1973. Copies were pressed by RCA, but the relationship between the label and Greenfield's manager, Fred Ahlert Jr., deteriorated just as the record was being launched. Greenfield has said that RCA wanted him to separate from Ahlert and continue with Kershenbaum, including another album. He stayed with his manager. Whatever possibilities RCA once saw in Blue Sky quickly disappeared with the dispute. The record survived, but largely without the promotion that might have allowed it to find its audience.

More than fifty years later, Blue Sky began to find its way back into view. In early 2024, the Museum of Canadian Music became involved in the album's restoration and reissue. Robert Williston acquired a sealed original RCA pressing and made a fresh digital transfer for Greenfield. After listening to the album from beginning to end on headphones, Barry wrote that he had not heard songs such as "My Last Blues," "How Long Can You Give Love" and "Suicide" in more than a decade. Hearing the 22-year-old version of himself again felt almost like discovering another artist. "I am so proud of this art," he told Williston. "You have given me a gift Brother."

The renewed attention led into Blue Sky (Deluxe Edition) [Remastered 2024], followed that spring by a feature in Britain's Record Collector. What had largely disappeared after 1973 was being heard again on its own terms. The famous names in the credits are part of the story, but the record belongs to Greenfield: the politics of "Sweet America," the uneasy urban picture of "New York Is Closed Tonight," the tenderness of "Free the Lady" and the more personal songs around them. Together they capture a young songwriter already writing with a clear voice and a strong sense of what he wanted to say.

-Robert Williston