(MS)
The brief acapella "I Love to Sing” serves as a chaser to possibly the most profound, flop-house, “skunk-drunk”, song-cycle ever dedicated to the barflies of the Sunset Strip. From the off the singer’s crazy and lost, bereft of a companion who can't even condescend to be with him; “Sweet Harriet”’s already gone and grey-faced drifter’s Doug Dillard and Gene Clark look on, serenading on furious banjo and harmonica. Across the room Harry Dean Stanton from “Cisco Pike” sits amongst the turkey-neck wrecks in dishevelled “Nudie” shirts, eyes propped open with burnt motel matches. It’s the Hollywood highs and low-down lows of the old Los Angeles Downtown “City Scenes”.
I imagine...
Like
the seasons, like the moon
Like
the still and frozen moment in the beggars hand
Love
is bargained for, much too soon"
10
years ago I allowed myself to be made redundant. Armed only with a good pair of
headphones and a lap-top groaning with obscure album rips, I drifted on a
circular bus journey round the US. At 2 am 2 months-in on a Greyhound somewhere
between Deadwood and Devil’s Tower I first heard this Bob Lind LP. It was a
crackly old rip which jumped halfway through the second track, "City Scenes".
The bass, the rolling piano, the world-weary voice… the lyrical re-immersion
into the circles of hell. It was enough to make up my mind there and then, to commit
to a thousand mile return trip back to LA to search for a new copy in the Amoeba
racks on Sunset Blvd. My bus disintegrated en-route and via Billings, Montana,
Salt Lake City and Vegas I found myself transported by ever smaller vehicles,
the last one a mini-bus that pulled our bags on a separate trailer all the way
in from Barstow.
40
years earlier Bob Lind had been pulled back into Los Angeles on his own
circular quest, returning to the city of his fleeting triumph and lingering fall:
All
my lifelong life
To
find the way to set the track
To
run the train to take me back
To
take me back"
Exiled
in Santa Fe, Lind had spent the latter part of the Aquarian age holed up with his
demons, binging on a diet of drink and drugs, his bridges in the LA jungle
burnt to a crisp by an industry reputation for "being difficult". Coaxed
back by Doug Weston, owner of the famed “Troubadour” folk-club, 1970’s “Since
There Were Circles” was to be the last shot, nurtured with favours cashed, in
the bosom of friends, well-wishers and crack session musicians.
By
all accounts he gave them hell in the process.
“Love Came Riding” and left too soon, like a Jacques Demy film playing with destiny, the characters circling each other but constantly missing. Gone and forgotten and by afternoon rapping with his newest best “Loser”, sucking on bottles of budget Ripple wine; the junkman’s drink of choice. Think Mary Astor in "Act of Violence". By Sunset the blues walk in, accompanied by the woozy hired horns from a nearby mariachi wedding. ”Not That I Would Want Her Back” he says, pinballing the slurred euphoria of loneliness, bouncing thoughts back around the brain.
It drives you mad if you stay there but like a sermon the “Theme
from the Music Box” plays the moment out with the just-removed insight of
morning-after sobriety, a sepia vignette closing side one with a Tinseltown
string flourish.
“They don't go by for nothing,
these moments
They come to touch and carry you
They come like thieves or saviours
To all our streams and avenues”
It was a great side and side
two’s better.
In
the mid-60s his brief moment came via a slew of wordy pop-vignettes draped in Jack
Nitzsche strings, his Colorado drawl emoting Dylanesque put-downs and mystic
requiems to fragile love. The poppy “Elusive Butterfly” made money but the
career stalled whilst TV caught him un-photogenically strumming away behind
frugging Go-Go girls, desperately looking for a Monkee. The death knell was the
opportunistic release in 1966 of acoustic demos from the near and distant past,
smothered in inappropriate arrangements that frequently failed to stay in time.
From this, Lind opted to disappear for a while.
I used to be the writing on the wall
Sometimes I can almost make it back there
Sometimes I don't believe it's there at all”
And then a sudden shift elevates the mood, careering into a sublime double-hit of hope, “In the early evening hour when the sun comes through the blinds”, and a woman with love… uncontainable love… “Spilling Over”… zig-zagging across the floor, sending everything over… chairs, drinks, hearts… minds…The start of something, the start of a life.
“…it's
insane, she never sees me when I'm strong”
“She Can Get Along”. Two minutes fifty-three seconds of wonder. A single that barely made it out of the Capitol pressing plant. A blissed-out anthem wrapped in wary words. The one in charge is “She” made explicit by the breathless final gallop….
“If you're gonna be around the girl you better know about her - I can tell you she can get along and don't you ever doubt her - maybe she'll be lookin' like a lady needs a lover - but you know she's just a loner workin' easy under cover - all alone…”
The clatter of
traffic, curtains pulled, a wipe of the eyes, “Up in the Morning Me” a little
link with those horns again blowing out the spittle and snot, setting things up
for the day’s big ending. Strummed guitar like the Fred Neil part of Tim
Buckley’s mind, “Since There Were Circles”, emerges …colossus-like… the only song
you ever want to busk on every street corner. Reverently and deep:
“Beauty
breaking open over all of my solitude and pain
I'm in your life stream like the desert drinking
in the rain
And whenever I'm holding you I feel your heart
beat
And it feels like the pulse of the world at my
feet
And oh, such wonders to discover
And oh, such peace to be your lover”
In the late 70’s Bob Lind was immortalised in the writings of Charles Bukowoski, then he became a tabloid journalist and then a novelist and playwright and 20-odd years ago he got the three R treatment with retrospective recognition and rediscovery. He’s back singing now I think. I also think this may be one of my very favourite LPs. I know this because I’ve realised in the last 3 weeks its only now I’ve really listened to it. For the last decade I seem to have tip-toed around it, fearful of tarnishing it with familiarity. It covers a range of folk-pop styles, with lyrics that embrace a lifetime of emotions and like getting to know someone special I’ve found repeated listens just keep on giving with this album.
I dedicate this review to Richie Unterberger because perhaps he doesn’t get allmusic.
(JS)
Bob Lind is an enigmatic singer song writer whom I confess I had never heard of. He made three abums between 1966 and 1971 before angrily spurning the music industry until 2012. Prior to his recording career he was a Colorado based folk singer. Recorded in the Bob Dylan wave of commoditisation, Lind produced an eclectic mix of country/folk with an impeccable galaxy of session musicians and producers whom he fell out with. Admired by other artists as a songwriter and critics, he didn’t achieve market recognition until his Jarvis Cocker instigated revival. Personally I missed that one as well. Intelligent tuneful songs with interesting tempo and lush productions. His voice is strong but lacking in range, so the effort goes into the tunes, arrangements and lyrical content. The music is composed on guitar with slow build to increasing complexity, and where piano joins, it follows the structure dictated by the guitar. If Lind has a key characteristic it is the way he changes the tempo of the piece in the chorus and middle 8, this emphasises the lyrical content. Most of his songs are love songs, of a slightly frustrated, unattainable note, with a sad introspection. He presents his narrator as a difficult, intense everyman without the cathartic release of Springsteen’s fast car driving, or Dylan’s righteous anger or Gaye’s sexual physicality or Van Morrison’s wistful optimistic mysticism. The romance in Lind is shouty and awkward. The journey is always unexpected and I suspect has aged better than it was first received, when I suspect the initial reaction was WTF. Structurally the songs are good, the production is generous but they go nowhere, and the lyric doesn’t stick with his voice’s tonal restrictions. A better singer could carry these songs further.
(PS)
I was only aware of Bob Lind previously through his 1966 single Elusive Butterfly, when his voice was smooth and optimistic sounding… country-tinged and a hint of wistful yearning, but ultimately quite innocent and fresh, boyish almost.
However this LP starts with an A Capella folk blues overture which shows his voice had altogether changed in the intervening 5 years, it’s much earthier and harsher than previous… maybe something to do with the substances which plagued his life during that time; then it leads into a country infused Sweet Harriett, with a rustic blues harp & banjo which makes me think of something by Area Code 615 a couple of years earlier. So far, so Country Blues... then City Scenes starts and it’s another style completely, like a slicker version of Bill Fay transplanted from North London to Greenwich Village or San Francisco.
Lind seems to have turned into the musical equivalent of blotting paper on this LP, seemingly taking in influences from all over the place – and evidently leaving their mark on other artists – as I can hear echoes of other LPs all through this one. An obvious influence would be Dylan, no surprise there – but I can also hear Arlo Guthrie and Richie Havens tones throughout the record (evidently Lind & Guthrie were close friends, and Lind’s favourite cover of his own songs was done by Havens, 2012’s How the Nights Can Fly).
For some reason, the next track Loser made me think of The Band: maybe it was the laid-back tempo and the slight time shuffle on the ‘a-holding back a-summer storm’ return to the main theme that did it. The opening guitar of Love Came Riding instantly made me think of Flat Baroque-era Roy Harper, and the occasional skipped beat kept that feel throughout the song.
Theme from the Music Box had a Phil Ochs
feel for me; Anymore might’ve been written by Jimmy Webb, and the triplets in
Spilling Over sounded very like Neil Young to my ears (maybe that’s the Jack
Nitzsche connection between the two coming through).
She Can Get Along was the only single from
the LP, but it didn’t trouble the US or UK charts – it was middle of the road
enough, but perhaps without the hook that would keep it in the front of your
mind for long. The jaunty Up In The Morning is a couple of fun minutes and the
most Arlo-like song on the LP, but it’s a trap – the closing title track is
reminiscent of early 70s Bowie with its 12 string suspended guitar chords, and
the darkly off-kilter lyrics remind you where the album’s heart is really
at.
The songs which work best for me on the LP
are the acoustic ones, but then I’ve always shied away from lush strings and
orchestral arrangements – so those were always going to grate slightly. It’s a
chameleon-like album that changes colour with every song, most notably going
from sky blue to dark grey with the closing two songs. It also improves with
further listening, so don’t dismiss it out of hand if it doesn’t feel like your
bag first time around.
(CG)
This 1971 album offers an interesting selection of tunes
and lyrics that explore different genres of folk as they intersect with rock
music following the path of Bob Dylan (to whom he was compared – probably the
kiss of death in terms of making it in the music industry in Dylan’s shadow) as
well as Gram Parsons and the Byrds. A prominent feature is how with each song he
re-articulates his vocals to shape the lyrics and add atmosphere. This
vocalisation borrows from various styles to which he has clearly paid close
attention and allows him to offer distinctive, if middle of the road, phrasings
that compare favourably with some of the notable American song book and rock
crooners of the period. On two or three tracks this stylistic device becomes
somewhat arch and fails to convince but for the most part there is a creative
enterprise that holds the listener’s attention.
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