Tommy Peltier was born in New Orleans and came out to Los Angeles with his mom on his 13th birthday. A decade later he was a regular playing cornet with his group the Jazz Corps at the famous jazz club, The Lighthouse. In 1966 the Jazz Corps cut an album for Pacific Jazz and featured the fantastic Roland Kirk. In 1970, due to an injury, Peltier could no longer play the horn and looked for other means for expression.

Not one to be undone, he took a few chords that he had learned from friends like Jude Sill – who became occasional collaborator, sometime lover, and lifelong friend – and set out as a singer-songwriter. None of that music saw the light until It was collected together as Chariot of Astral Light. They worked together on a lot of Peltier’s material, and Judee pops up on half of the disc handling backing vocals, guitar and organ lines.

He had a house in Echo Park where he held weekly Saturday recording sessions in his front room that a number of peripheral scenesters would attend (Lynn Blessing, Wolfgang Melz, Dave Parlato, and Barry McManus – all of whom appear here). Aside from the few takes done at actual studios, the bulk of the stuff was recorded in that tiny room.