SPURNED CLASSIC! Songs by Paul Parrish

Paul Parrish

Songs

(1971)

Paul Parrish is one of those singers who maybe did too few albums, didn't have enough mystique and maybe just got unlucky and has been scattered in the wind ever since. Until recently, cos they've finally put some of his early stuff out on cd, and it is GREAT.  His first album The Forest Of My Mind (1968) is a gorgeous slab of soft-psych folk-rock reminiscent of Sunshine Superman-era Donovan, full of flutes, harpsichords, flower-power anthems, and period charm (you might find it a little saccharine, personally i love saccharine keep it coming) - so go buy, it's really good. 

Songs came out in 1971 and is, again, a total product of its time. A mostly piano-led singer-songwriter album, everything kept simple (title included) and sparse and heartfelt, with the odd McCartneyesque bit of piano pop but mostly a bunch of introspective and lovely little ditties you can hum along to. Again, i have to stipulate that this is an album with song titles like A Poem I Wrote For Your Hair and I Once Had A Dog, all sung completely earnestly, so you might wanna use your safe word before subjecting yourself to this if you have trouble with that kinda thing. It might be a personal failing, but I can take a harsh pounding of this kind of post-60's hippie melancholy like a champ.

Nice huh. Apart from that bit where that guy chips in ('Ed Venezuela?'). I'm sure at some point at school i wrote a poem about someone's hair. It sounds like something i would do. So I just went for a walk and listened to Songs on my ultra millenium-denial discman, and (apart from all the skipping due to aforementioned shitty discman) it sounded pretty as heck in the sunshine walking around Pontcanna. I guess there's not much more to say about it than that. It's a shame so much great music gets lost over time, or falls in and out of fashion, it all seems kinda arbitrary. Here's one that deserves to be salvaged, and hopefully with its recent reissue, might well find its place in some of our hearts.  

SPURNED CLASSIC! - Down In L.A. by Brewer & Shipley

Brewer & Shipley

Down In L.A.

(1968)

A young girl sleeps 
and her dreams are laced with silver...

First off, sweet genius that's a magnificent cover isn't it...Mmm green and yellow...I really love this album. This is the sound of the West Coast in that great transitional year of 1968. Things haven't gotten too rural yet (these dudes probably had moustaches not beards), but in the aftermath of psychedelia something irrevocable has happened, the mystical has become implicit in the everyday, so even when you think you're just hearing these kinda traditional, simple harmony-laden folky songs, there's something about them that just feels different. The harmonies are delightful, the songs elegant and organic; acoustic guitars, a tinkle of harpsichord, wind chimes, some subtle orchestration and softly crashing cymbals, close your eyes and you're in Laurel Canyon with the sun in your eyes and the breeze in your fur. This is B&S's debut album, and I wish someone would reissue their 2nd and 3rd albums stat (Weeds and Tarkio?) as I bet they're all kinds of good too. Listen to Green Bamboo, it's great isn't it? You can totally imagine Peter Fonda listening to it by his pool, loving life. Down In L.A. captures that moment in time beautifully, folk-rock turning into roots-rock, kinda Byrdsy, kinda Buffalo Springfield, it is consistently brilliant. Before long things would get heavier, lengthier, or just more deep south, the whiff of the FSM marches and the coffee houses would be well and truly redundant, but you can still hear them a little here. It's a fugitive moment, but this album puts you right there.  

Now we beat on the drum
Aquarian dancers come...

Green Bamboo

SPURNED CLASSIC! - Apprentice (In A Musical Workshop) by Dave Loggins (1974)

Dave Loggins
Apprentice (In a Musical Workshop)
1974

I recently picked up this Dave Loggins 3-fer on BGO Records, and so far i haven't been able to get past the first album. Apprentice has to be my fave slice of Seventies singer-songwriter-soft-rock splendour since Dan Fogelberg's Souvenirs. It makes me feel warm and good, which is nice as our heater's broken down. This is exactly the kind of tragically overlooked, irredeemably un-hip, true pumpkin-puree sound of the Seventies which i like to imagine piping out of a truck on the L.A freeway or some place with a lovely macrame owl.

A macrame owl

Who is Dave Loggins? I'm not sure. But let me tell you something, he is the shit. Apprentice is sincere and soulful, and there's not even an obligatory rocker so you don't have to skip any tracks, they're all wonderful and they're all soft around the edges. Please Come To Boston was a smash hit, obvs i'd never heard it before. I wish this kind of thing didn't get dismissed so much, where's the respect for Bread, America, Kiki Dee, Clifford T. Ward, Jimmie Spheeris?

Dave Loggins really wants you to go to Boston...

In honour of all these Seventies MOR greats (and because beards are so over) i've shaved my beard and gone full-Glenn Frey with my very own extra-sleazy moustache. There it is.

Honouring the greats