It’s a beautiful day to listen to the 1966 Chicago garage rock band The Treez featuring drummer Val Fuentes. Fuentes would end up migrating to California where he would be the original drummer for It’s a Beautiful Day, who had a 1969 hit “White Bird,” become part of the San Francisco music culture and enjoy a stint with New Riders of the Purple Sage.
“I was aware of a Latin drum ‘groove’ at an early age,” Fuentes says as his family listened to a lot of Latin music and his dad was friends with band leader Jose Bettencourt. “When I was around 12 a friend turned me on to Gene Krupa, and I was hooked.”
Val’s mom bought him his first drum set. “A champagne sparkle Ludwig kit,” as he remembers. Growing up in Chicago, attending Lakeview High School, he played in, what he terms, “a garage grunge-type band,” The Treez playing high school socials and local YMCA. Band members included Wayne DeSalvo on guitar and Fuentes on drums with Billy Olesky and Joe Markko. In 1965, they won a battle of the bands, the prize being a recording deal with Dutch Wenzlaff’s Harlequin Records. That prize – the single “You Lied to Me Before” https://youtu.be/SxR8_QiV6Tg b/w “As Long as You Want” https://youtu.be/dz7f1HQdMXY.

Fuentes graduated high school in 1966 and hung around Chicago for a year, taking off for California in early 1967. “I was drawn to California by all the great music out there at the time. I had some Chicago buddies living there so I already had a place to stay for a while.” Connecting with other musicians, he and bass player Mithcell Holman would meet David and Linda LaFlamme who was starting up the band It’s a Beautiful Day.
David LaFlamme was a classically-trained violinist, having performed with the Utah Symphony Orchestra. Having served in the military, he moved to San Francisco after his discharge in 1962. There he met his wife Linda, a keyboardist herself, and they went on to form It’s a Beautiful Day.

Things didn’t initially start out well for the band. When the band formed they signed a management deal with Matthew Katz. Katz was already the manager of two established San Francisco bands, Jefferson Airplane and Moby Grape, so It’s A Beautiful Day thought they were on their way. Little did they know that both Jefferson Airplane and Moby Grape were scrambling to cut their ties with Katz over management and money disputes. So Katz exiled them to Seattle where he owned the Encore Ballroom, making them the house band. But the San Francisco sound didn’t go over in Seattle. So the band headed back to San Francisco and went through an ugly legal battle with Katz, finally winning their freedom in mid-1969. Once free, the band quickly signed a recording contract with Columbia records
Their debut self-titled album featured their hit “White Bird” https://youtu.be/DvWrFqz6UeQ which rode the FM airwaves into the Billboard Hot 100, with their second album taking them soaring higher as Marrying Maiden rose to #28.
The marriage of classical and progressive rock took It’s a Beautiful Day to Carnegie Hall, Columbia Records releasing a live album in 1972 from that performance. Shortly after that LaFlamme disbanded the group over disputes regarding the direction and management of the band.

Fuentes would remain in San Francisco where for the next decade he would work with various local bands including Fat Chance (pictured here), Linda Imperial and the Pure Pleasure Band and Shadowfax. In 1982, connected up with New Riders of the Purple Sage.
The roots of New Riders of the Purple Sage were closely interwoven with the Grateful Dead in the San Francisco era of the 1960’s. With a San Francisco-flavored country-rock, they debuted with a self-titled album in 1971. Ingrained in the Dead culture they would find success, although by the mid-‘70s the band would start to splinter, members going in different directions. By the end of the decade, the lone original member John “Marmaduke” Dawson would be left. New Riders of the Purple Sage would continue under Dawson’s direction in the ‘80s with numerous personnel changes which included Fuentes coming on board from 1982-90.
Following the NRPS years, Fuentes would take some time off, got married, raised a son and led a normal life.
Then, after years of legal wrangling over ownership of the It’s a Beautiful Day band’s name, David LaFlamme resumed formal use of It’s a Beautiful Day as their former manager let the trademark of the name go unrenewed. From 2000, LaFlamme performed with the reconstituted band, which included his third wife, Linda Baker LaFlamme, and having Fuentes return to the fold.
They would issue a live recording from November 2003 Live in Seattle and some new studio recordings done in 2005 as Misery Loves Company on Dean Sciarra’s It’s About Music label.
It’s a Beautiful Day would embark on a tour of England in 2013, with the UK Hookah label issuing a four-song EP pulling material from a 1969 live recording at The Matrix in San Francisco.
As the sun set on It’s a Beautiful Day, Fuentes would put his music career aside and became a Senior Materials Handler for the global biotech company BioMarin Pharmaceutical. As he turns 76 this year (11/25/47), he is now enjoying a life of retirement.
Sadly LaFlamme, who had been suffering from Parkinson’s disease, passed away earlier this year.
Discography
1966 The Treez – You Lied to Me Before b/w Only As Long As You Want (Harlequin 660725)
(Note: “Only As Long as You Want” is also included in the various artist compilation She’s a Pest! (18 Revved-Up Teen Swingers!) (Teenage Shutdown TS-6615) released in 2000. “You Lied to Me Before” appeared on the various artist compilation Gravel Volume 4 (Kumquat May KMGR 004) in 2007.
1969 It’s a Beautiful Day – It’s a Beautiful Day (Columbia 9768)
1970 It’s a Beautiful Day – Marrying Maiden (Columbia 1058)
1971 It’s a Beautiful Day – Choice Quality Stuff / Anytime (Columbia 30735)
1972 It’s a Beautiful Day – At Carnegie Hall (Columbia 31338)
1973 It’s a Beautiful Day – …Today (Columbia 32181)
2003 David LaFlamme Band – Beyond Dreams (Repertoire 5018)
2004 It’s a Beautiful Day – Live in Seattle (It’s About Music 0088)
2005 It’s a Beautiful Day – Misery Loves Company (It’s About Music 9856)