Back in the ‘70s there was a regionally popular group called the Pousette-Dart Band (aka PDB), formed by singer/song writer Jon Pousette-Dart here in Cambridge, Massachusetts. The group’s self-titled debut album “Pousette-Dart Band” was released in 1976 and by the time their next album, “Amnesia” was released in ‘77 they had quite a following, with popular singles such as “Amnesia” (how can you forget that one?), “Fall on Me” and “County Line”

Perhaps you remember them, in which case you too may have wondered about that unusual name. Well,  it’s a name freighted with history, as Jon is the son of Richard Pousette-Dart an avant-garde artist who was hugely popular in the 1940s.  With collections now found in New York’s Metropolitan Museum of Art, the Whitney Museum, the Guggenheim Museum and the Museum of Modern Art, as well as Washington’s Smithsonian Museum and the National Gallery, not to mention dozens of other major museums (including Boston’s MFA), he was rather a celebrated member of the Abstract Expressionist School of painting.

In fact the family maintains an artistic tradition as Richard’s daughter (and Jon’s sister) Joanna Pousette-Dart is a highly regarded abstract painter with exhibits in a broad array of contemporary museums and galleries. All very interesting, but it still doesn’t explain the name.

So imagine my surprise to discover that Richard was the son of Nathaniel Jermund Pousette-Dart, who was also an important painter (and art writer),  known for his “progressively modern” and slightly “impressionistic” landscapes (that were still considered “sane and conservative”).  The son of Swedish immigrants, Algot and Mathilda Pousette, Nathaniel had married a girl named Flora Louise Dart in St. Paul, Minnesota.

But Flora‘s ideas about marriage were fairly progressive and believing that a marriage should be based on mutual esteem, she refused to use the conventional “love, honor cherish and obey” vows and insisted upon writing her own.  When they were married in 1913, Nathaniel and Flora combined their names, and that’s the origin of the Pousette-Dart name.

Not long after releasing its fifth album, their grandson’s group called it quits in 1981, although Jon Pousette-Dart still maintains an active touring schedule, which sometimes includes the other members of the band.  And today’s bittersweet selection from the “Amnesia” album remains a favorite.

LISTEN TO TODAY’S SELECTION – Tuesday 15 May

 Yaicha

I love to watch you smile

And Yaicha

You’re the reason you’re mama smiles

And Yaicha

You are a candle beneath the falling the rain

You are the child in which the love still remains

Oh unbroken

You shine amidst the pain

And unspoken

You understand just the same

You are a candle beneath the falling the rain

You are the child in which the love still remains

Oh Yaicha

I love to watch you smile…