I was asked by a loyal reader for another Caribou story, so here goes.

Supertramp recorded at Caribou. They are an English band and, in the seventies, and much of the eighties, their bass player was Dougie Thompson. His brother Ali Thompson recorded at Caribou too. (Take a Little Rhythm in 1980). Take A Little Rhythm opens with that soulful yet upbeat sax riff. The Thompsons are Scottish.

Honestly, I don’t recall which one of the brothers or band members asked but I remember a morning request to make a traditional English Breakfast. This included cooking tomatoes on the grill. I was good at most things cooked on the grill but having never eaten tomatoes prepared this way, I failed miserably.

The sunny side up eggs were beautiful. The bacon, sausage and toast were perfect. But the tomatoes were an ugly, inedible blob of red mush. We belly laughed at my failure. My effort was admired.

It was probably Ali or one of his band members. They were all incredibly friendly and truly nice; they gave me a beautiful handmade Scottish wool, roll-neck jumper, aka; sweater. (They called sweaters jumpers.)

In 1977, Supertramp recorded Even in the Quietest Moments (Give a Little Bit) at Caribou.

The cover of this album is the one with a piano covered in snow. A gutted grand piano was very carefully hauled up one of the slopes at Eldora Ski Area. Caribou and Eldora are not that far away; maybe 8 miles. It was left there overnight to get the perfect look of freshly fallen snow. The sheet music shown in the photo is actually The Star-Spangled Banner, but the title reads Fools Overture. Fools Overture opens with a beautiful piano solo. (Side note: I eventually cooked at Eldora too.)

Even in the Quietest Moments sold more than 500,000 copies within few months of its release making it Supertramp’s first Gold Album. They eventually had 6 of their albums go Gold or Platinum.

In 1979 they released Breakfast in America. (Goodbye Stranger, Take the Long Way Home.) Supertramp’s Breakfast in America was nominated for a Grammy Award for Album of the Year. That one was a Quadruple Platinum winner. (Platinum status indicates sales of 1,000,000).

My Traditional English breakfast with the terrible tomatoes would never be an award winner but I successfully prepared many ordinary “no tomato” breakfasts in America for some extraordinarily successful musicians.