2000 Great Songs #1492: Has Anybody Seen The Superstar

One of my favorite parts of online music culture is discovering obscure, long-lost (or long-forgotten) gems from the 60s and 70s. And it doesn't get much more obscure than the 1972 album Has Anybody Seen The Superstar, by one Rod St. James. So obscure that I can't find any information whatsoever about who this guy was, aside from the fact that he issued a lone album on a no-name Louisiana record label which eventually got reissued a few decades later on a label focused on odd archival releases.

The record has an oh-so-early-70s vibe, blending funk, R&B, and pop, sort of a mash-up of Santana and what would later be called yacht rock, with some delightfully casual but committed guitar jams and pleasant grooves. The title track just makes me want to sit back in my wood-paneled den, pop open a can of Schlitz, and dip my toes in the thick, burnt-orange shag carpet. Seems destined to be repurposed into the soundtrack of a period-piece by Tarantino or Paul Thomas Anderson, but hasn't happened yet.

Is it a great song? I suppose not. But it suggests the existence of a parallel classic rock universe where this is as overplayed as the Steve Miller Band.

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