Curtiss Maldoon

Comprised of guitarists and singer-songwriters Dave Curtiss and Clive Maldoon, the duo, Curtiss Maldoon, made a couple of ordinary, low-key rock albums in the early '70s, and are now most remembered for their associations with much more famous musicians. Curtiss (on bass) and Maldoon were both in Bodast, the short-lived group that Steve Howe played lead guitar for between stints with Tomorrow and Yes. Maldoon (sometimes billed as "Clive Skinner") and Curtiss wrote -- alone, together or with Howe -- much of the material that Bodast recorded in 1969, which showed up on some reissues after Howe's vault to fame. When Bodast broke up at the end of the '60s, with Howe joining Yes, Curtiss and Maldoon formed a duo that took off in a less harder-rocking, more singer-songwriter-inclined direction than Bodast had. Curtiss Maldoon signed to Deep Purple's label, Purple, releasing albums in 1971 and 1973. Steve Howe and Bruce Thomas, later in Elvis Costello's Attractions, were among the large pool of musicians to help out on their self-titled debut LP; their second and final one, simply called Maldoon, came out in late 1973. This second album was credited to Maldoon solely, although Curtiss plays on the whole thing; he asked for his name to be taken off of it, unhappy with the results. In the face of indifferent commercial response to their fairly tame and unexceptional early-s'70s folk-rock-tinged singer/songwriter sound, they disbanded soon after Maldoon, Maldoon dying accidentally from drug-related causes in 1976. In 1998, however, Curtiss Maldoon achieved some retrospective notoriety. Maldoon's niece, Christine Leach, of the band Baby Fox, worked with producer William Orbit on a re-recording of a song, "Seraphyn," from Curtiss Maldoon's first album. When superstar Madonna...