Sepehr

I found an old cassette tape from a recording I had made in Oakland, California in 1978. On it was a song I had written in high school in Iran about affairs of the heart titled “My Friend”. The lyrics are self-explanatory. My friend from those same high school days Borzoo who was going to school at U.C. Berkeley, heard it and said we should go record it in a proper studio and that he would also play back-up guitar and sing vocal harmony. I didn’t have a good guitar, so he suggested we go to a music store called “Tupper & Reed” on Shattuck Ave. in Berkeley and that I buy a new guitar. We were students and didn’t have much money to spend on extravagant purchases, but he insisted, and I basically spent a whole semester’s worth of tuition on my specially made left-handed Ovation guitar with a just as expensive case, since I wanted to take the guitar back to Iran in the summer and couldn’t afford for it to be damaged. I ate a lot of peanut butter jelly sandwiches for the rest of that semester.

He had also met two of the back-up singers for the famous musician Taj Mahal and they had listened to the song and wanted to sing back- up vocals on it. One was named Bonita, and I have forgotten the other lady’s name. By chance, the same weekend we were going to record, our mutual friend from high school, Shahin (of Shahin and Sepehr) had come to visit us both in Berkeley and also joined us in the studio and played the intro electric guitar. In reality, that was the first “Shahin & Sepehr” collaboration even though it’s only a few seconds in length.

//iranian.com/main/audio/148941

We didn’t have enough money left over from the purchase of the guitar and the rental of the studio to hire proper musicians such as a bassist and a drummer, so the song is only guitar and vocals.

If it wasn’t for Borzoo (and he hears this every time I see him), I would never have gotten into the music business. Can’t believe this is from 33 years ago.