Hasten Down The Wind

(Asylum)

She may have the best set of what is too commonly called “pipes” in this hemisphere, but that don’t make her best vocalist in the West. Like Rod Stewart she is a great interpreter. Unlike Patti Smith, she has nothing to say, most of the time (she co-wrote two songs here). But then interpreters don’t have to; that is their saving grace. I have cried to Linda Ronstadt’s interpretations of other people’s music before. Big fucking deal. I have also cried at sidewalks and dogs in the past year, cheap sentimental matinees, sunsets and the face that fronts the voice at jack in the Box; in other words, I got floating emotionalism, like most of you, so my joyous torment with Linda Ronstadt don’t mean shit.

Now. Further. As a male. (I hesitate to use the word “man.”) She used to be my ultimate sex fantasy. Those lips, that mouth, 1 mean Nancy Sinatra kiss all gloriosky byebye, this bitch’s got it sewed up. That was until 1 met her. She played a hard-won concert in Detroit with Jackson Browne as opening act and Glenn Frey’s mother in the dressing room. I mean it was a night to bring a tear to your sweat glands. But when I met her—oh, quio mio dios morales a lackos oustos—she was not the woman I had dreamed of all these years. 1 had dreamed of a high school biglipped luscious peach poozle. Instead she was just like any girl you mighta gone to high school with; a nice pleasant peasant girl, but that’s it. No dream cine tumescent apparition. So I say fuck the bitch . . . she’s not what she pretends to be, she’s not as good as the Ramones, she makes the beast with two backs with wimps like J. D. Souther and Jackson Browne—I mean, DO YOU REALLY CARE ABOUT THIS SCROFULOUS ZLUG?

Of course you do. Because her personal life, reprehensible as it may be, has nothing to do with the sometime excellence of her music. The essential questions for Linda Ronstadt are (1) How to break out of the tremulous heartbreak ballad rut, and (2) Should she break out of it? This album provides some answers, as in the opening “Lose Again.” You can sing your guts out, passion can pour from your lungs like spume from a whale, but if the music doesn’t build, if it doesn’t go anywhere, you might as well be (vocally) flat and dead as Leonard Cohen, as Linda’s previous Asylum album proved. But a cut like “Lose Again” provides Linda with what she sorely needs: dynamics—her voice and the guitar soaring upwards together forever. As opposed to just sitting there emoting, which is what has made all of Ronstadt’s past albums spotty and what here sinks a cut like “If He’s Ever Near” in the piddlepuddle of its steel guitars and hopelessly maudlin lyrics.

Which brings up the whole matter of this Heartbreak Kitten image. On a song as philosophical (the actual word is “preachy”— “And quit tryin’ to lead a fast life/Goin’ about dressin’ up other women/Won’t put clothes on his own wife” etc.—but preachy is as respectable as reggae or Aretha’s “Do Right Woman—Do Right Man”) asRy CooderVThe Tattler” it works, because there is some concept at work here beyond Victim, but face it, she’s never gonna top “Long Long Time” at that schtick, in fact has been sliding down all her tears dangerously close to self-parody for some time now.

That’s why a cut like “That’ll Be the Day” is so welcome—not only is it obviously great material, but Linda is a great singer of the kind of country rock epitomized by “Lovesick Blues” off Silk Purse as opposed to, say, Poco. I wouldn’t even mind seeing her do a whole album of rockabilly tunes, a kind of female Delbert McClinton. All this eclecticism—the cut immediately following “Day,” co-written by Linda, is sung almost entirely in Spanish, and might go well in the background over a Combination Plate at Su Casa in La Jolla, Calif.—is better than the monochromatic bathos of Don’t Cry Now, but the best album she ever did was Silk Purse as everybody knows, and even that was a bit spotty, and the reason, then and now, was over-eclecticism of the type that leads her to record two reggae numbers (what the hell is Linda Ronstadt doing singing about going back to Zion?) that are downright embarrassing. What this woman needs is not liberation but a good A&R man.

She also needs to get the hell out of L.A. Warren Zevon may have the sense of humor his hype credits him with—I haven’t heard his album—but “Hasten Down the ) Wind,” besides being another one of those horrible titles from some hideous unnamable genre like Crosby & Nash’s Whistling down the Wire, is more lachrymose Prisoner Undisguised mongering, or maybe I mean pandering, but anyway I’m sick of it. I’m also sick of the Coastal—in the sense that the Eagles are about the Coast rather than the West—sterility of her productions.

Even Willie Nelson’s “Crazy,” which is fine closing-time country bar torch singing, sort of a non-collegiate Seventies “Scotch and Soda,” suffers by comparison with what she is capable of. As for “Down So Low,” Mary Magdalene herself couldn’t top the original. What this woman should do is pack up a cassette of certain carefully selected songs from all her albums except Don’t Cry Now—songs like “Lovesick Blues,” “When Will I Be Loved,” “You’re No Good,” and “That’ll Be the Day”—take the next plane to Nashville, get Billy Sherrill to produce her and record a whole album of real country rock including Hank Williams’ “Settin’ the Woods on Fire,” Leona Williams’ “Working Girl,” at least one song by Steve Young, and “Muleskinner Blues.” She didn’t cut Tracy Nelson, but she might have it in her to actually cut Dolly Parton. But nobody’s ever gonna know if she keeps on peddling the same old stuff.

GRAND FUNK

Good Singin’ Good Playin’

(MCA)

I think the question that popped up the most when word first got around some months back, was whether Zappa was gonna mess up Grand Funk’s slop rock approach or whether or not he was just slummin’, which would have been detrimental to all concerned. As it turns out though, they’ve done each other a favor and it really caresses the old ticker to know that they’ve become such fast friends (see CREEM, vol. 8-4).

1 mean, a year ago 1 wouldn’t piss on a Grand Funk album because I’m a snob (an eclectic snob—I’d piss on a Kiss album because they’re relatively new and antic—GFR have been around long enough for it to have become traditional to dump on them if you’re a music snob. It takes no bravado to admit to being a snob in public because just about everybody is. The need to have something to look down on is primal.). The favor from Zappa is that he’s caused a lot of people to investigate this album who otherwise wouldn’t bother (not that GFR needs a larger* audience) and, more importantly, he s cleaned up their sound without tampering with their basic dumbness. The combination of clean, tight, rockin’ music and crystal clean, inane lyrics makes for a very appealing album.

Settle for a minimum of competence and you’ll rarely be disappointed—this being the year of Black and Blue, to nurture any kind of taste or discretion is,to beg for frustration. There’s only one minor irritant here which prevents the record from being a minor masterpiece of minor competence and that’s the anti-gun control song, “Don’t Let ’Em Take Your Gun.” The problem is that the song settles for the usual patriotic pap and never mentions who the guns are gonna protect us from or who we’re gonna be shooting in order to protect our fair land—namely each other. That would have been an ass-kicker, but they play it safe, and that’s disappointing.

And what was the favor they did for Zappa? Well, they spread his name around and showed that the old bean bag isn’t really some mon-’ strous anarchist weirdo (I wish he were) but a regular fellah who knows his rock‘n’roots. He plays a solo (his only playing appearance here) on “Out To Get You,” which is as fine as any he has recorded. Moreover, on a curiously humorless album—curious because this is a group that supposedly doesn’t take itself too seriously—he interjects a great put-on line (his only writing appearance) into GFR’s interminable ballad, “Miss My Baby.” “I miss my baby/I think I’m goin’ crazy/1 miss my baby/I think I’ll join the Navy.” Nice song. Nice album. Nice group. Nice.

Richard C. Walls

RYCOODER

ChickenSldn Music

(Reprise)

By now, Ry Cooder has established his niche so conclusively that you already know whether you like him or not. His curiously pinched vocals, his guitar and mandolin work, his boundless resourcefulness in seeking out material: these are all givens. He's come far enough now that when he does a blues or a country song, or a Trinidadian song or a rocker, you don’t even think of those labels—all of his material sounds uniquely Cooder, regardless of where he’s dredged it up or what new ethnic sounds he’s utilizing for inspiration. Chicken Skin Music does him as proud as its predecessors.

In its own way, this is very much a summer album, butRy’s conception of summer isn’t like that of the Beach Boys. He makes the kind of music you listen to while you’re sipping beers under a shade tree on hot, lazy afternoons. The title itself comes from a Hawaiian slang phrase equivalent to “goosebumps.”

Cooder is thus joined by Gabby Pahinui, Hawaii’s master slack key and steel guitarist, for some cuts; the instrumental “Chloe” should make you nod off with a smile on your face. On other cuts he is joined by accordianist Flaco Jiminez, the pride of the Rio Grande Valley; Ry has also recently become enamored with conjunto. the music of the Texas-Mexican border. “He’ll Have to Go,” the Jim Reeves chestnut, and Leadbelly’s “Goodnight Irene” are the primary fruits of that coir laboration.

There’s not a bad track here, but three others merit special mention: “I Gpt Mine,” a craps song, for its sly humor; “Stand By Me,” for the crystalline harmonies; and Leadbelly’s “The Bourgeois Blues,” an antiWashington song, for its timeliness in this election year. But Cooder always sounds timely, no matter how ancient the songs and styles he’s working with, because his music springs from so deeply inside the Ameijcan psyche. Hell, he makes a Bicentennial album every tirrie out.

John Morthland

BOSTON

(Epic)

Boston doesn’t sound much like it has anything to do witn the city it’s named after. Course neither does Chicago (sign here for the petition to have their name changed to Guercio), and who can forget the United States of America, a record voted most likely to outlast all other cutouts in the bargain bin. In fact, if you want to get geographical about it,7 this record sounds more like new England crossed with patches of Philadelphia and Flint, Michigan than the land of Fred Lynn and Carlton Fisk (how anybody can make a case for the American League when its two best catchers are named Carlton and Thurmon is beyond me). Boston is led by Tom Scholz and the bio informs me that Scholz has a master's from M.I.T. in mechanical engineering and he’s also worked in the product design wing of Polaroid, so you know the guy is no dummy. His band ain’t dumb either. What Boston is is great, at this precise moment anyway.

I say “at this precise moment” because this is a band that apparently lives, thinks and runs on “hooks”— all kinds of mental push buttons that set off small bursts of rock orgasmitron activity—and who knows how long they’ll be able to last. Every song on their debut album throws in a special little touch, for example, “More Than A Feeling,” an FM sure shot if ever there was one. It is, as James Beard would say, a tossed salad full of texture, with introspective acoustic guitar slices, rhythm guitar crunchies and twin lead meltin-your-mouth morsels. ">Cack on some above average lead singing from Bradley Delp and some soaring vocal harmonies, and you’ve got one killer song.

“Rock & Roll Band” comes complete with audience screams, “Smokin!" almost makes boogie acceptable again and “Foreplay/Long Time” grafts some Nice/ELP keyboard flash onto the foot-stompin’ philosophy. There’s handclaps on the choruses, neatly timed stops during the solos, a little Todd Rundgren aesthetics here, a little Deep Purple bar consciousness there. This record is as ridiculously good as it is ridiculously derivative. I know I’ve heard it all before and I may be getting commercially exploited but who cares? I’m up tappin’ my feet and that’s more than I could say for almost everything else I’ve heard this year.

Billy Altman

THELONIUS MONK

The Complete Genius

( (Blue Note)

Thelonious Monk is surely one of the most admirable of American artists, and this is one of the most important collections of jazz recordings ever assembled.

Monk is much like the composer Charles Ives. He kr\ew what he was doing even when no one else did, or thought he did, and he kept on/ doing it, and waited—either patiently or disinterestedly—for everyone else to catch up. These are all the recordings he made as singles for Blue Note between 1947 and 1952, and they are the basis of his achievement. Everything he has done since then, even the magnificent quartet he led with John Coltrane, stems from this.

Monk is a pianist and composer. Most of his influential compositions, including that most beautiful of jazz ballads, Round About Midnight, are contained in this set, and they have formed the basis of his repertoire ever since; he has recorded some of them nearly a dozen times.

He is probably the most immediately identifiable of all jazz pianists— one note or chord can tell you who it is. just by the sound—and plays, unlike practically anyone else, from completely within the jazz and church traditions (he once accompanied a revivalist). You can hear Ellington, James P. Johnson and Jimmy Yancey in his piano playing, but it’s as if European music never existed. That’s why a lot of people thought he couldn’t play. And it’s a completely minimal music, without frills—without adjectives, so to speak. If Monk has nothing to say, he shuts up. And within that tradition, he is one of the most harmonically and rhythmically inventive pianists we’ve ever had, and one of the''-■finest, .deepest blues players.

To give you an idea, if. you’ve never heard hirrf—I don’t think John Lennon’s piano on “Mother” would exist if it weren’t for Monk—listen to this music. Listen to “Carolina Moon” first, if you don’t know Monk's compositions (that’s what they are, they’re not songs or tunes), and then listen to “Straight No Chaser.” And try to hum it. There are some inferior bop era soloists here, but there are also the great vibraphonist. Milt Jackson, who always said he preferred playing with Monk to the Modern Jazz Quartet, and Art Blakey, the most sympathetic drummer Monk ever had.

I could take pages describing this music, but all I really want to do is make you want to listen to it. It’s at the core of American music, as deep and joyous and rocking as anything you’ll ever hear.

Joe Goldberg

JOHN DENVER

Spirit

(RCA)

A lot is riding on this review for me. My father, a Lefty Frizell fan from way back, wants me to get in a few digs at Denver for winning so many country music awards over the last few years. “They call that notalent creep a country artist?!” is ope of his more good-natured commerits. My 19-year-old brother Doug likes Denver, and since I’m missing his appearance in a Stamford, Connecticut production of Fiddler On The Roof to write this review, I’ll feel badly if I compound the disappointment by panning his boy J ohp; I’ll give Doug my review copy of Spirit—maybe that will cushion things a bit. I also really want to work in this very interesting quote from one of Anthony Powell’s novels, something to the effect that being well-known is a “social aberration.” It would be nice, too, if I could deal with Denver in good gonzo style, smack him with a barrage of coarse colloquialisms in the best CREEM Record Review Section tradition. All this is beginning to weigh heavily upon me.

To top it all off, this is a very depressed J ohn Denver on Spirit. Lots of slow songs, and only three of them are written by John himself, though he co-authored four others. Clearly, a small wrifer’s block has set in, apd what writing there is is studded with references to a troubled peflsonal life: he’s saying things like “Someone let me in/I think the sky is falling/Seems I’ve gotten lost on my way and “. . . sometimes I feel like a sad sorig.” Even the non-originals are not exactly cheery. “In the Grand Way,” by John Martin Somners (sounds like an alias to me), concludes “Though I see it for the good ... it seems I’ve just been dreaming.” The only happy song J ohn has written here is “It Makes Me Giggle,” about his child, but it’s, less happy than just sort of hysterical: he keeps repeating “It makes me giggle/It makes me giggle/ Sometimes I wiggle.” Sheesh.

This didn’t turn out the way I expected. My heart’s not in it; hate to hit a guy when he’s down. Spirit is J ohn Denver’s Tonight’s the Night. I don’t feel too chipper myself.

Ken Tucker

CHRISTINE McVIE

The Legendary Christine Perfect Album

(Sire)

You’ve all heard of Andy Warhol’s prediction that, at some point in the not-too-distant future, everybody will be famous for at least 15 minutes. (In Hollywood, that prophecy is already close to fulfilling itself.) One nice side effect of such a condition would be the joy of seeing the record companies hopping around, scouring their coffers for discarded jewels by nouveau-famous artists in order to re-locate, re-package and re-release the m‘oldy tracks before the 15 minutes are up.

Fleetwood Mac’s fame has lasted considerably longer than the quarter-hour necessary to qualify lead singer Christine McVie for the resurrection of this album and the result is a bonanza for record company and consumer alike. The record company benefits, as usual, because the cost of reissuing an album like this one is miniscule, so any return at all is gravy (and the return on this one, with Fleetwood Mac burning up the charts, should help to make a lot of sauce), and the consumer also benefits, for a change, because The Legendary Christine Perfect Album is an unpretentious gem that provides both a historical and an aesthetic perspective to Christine’s career.

I can’t use the line about this LP sounding asgoodasthedayit-wasrecorded, because there are some sacrifices that have been made to the bygone years, foremost being the overall sound. Produced in 1969 by Mike Vernon and Christine herself, the album sort of sounds like it’s coming out of a funnel, no matter how good your speakers are. But this doesn’t hamper the music; it actually adds to the slinky, sexy quality of Christine’s voice to give the whole album an air akin to the Jaynett’s “Sally, Go ’Round The Roses”—murky and mysterious.

Chronologically, this disc falls between Christine’s work with Chicken Shack, (who supply some of the instrumental backup here) and her hook-up with John McVie (whom she later married, dropping the wonderful Christine Perfect moniker) and Fleetwood Mac. The album ties the music of the two bands neatly together, working out of a rather straight-forward blues stance, but spilling over to accommodate the full range of Christine’s voice. Her five original songs here show that her songwriting style has not changed much over the years and that she’s managed the rare feat of gaining a mass acceptance without forsaking the basic blues subtleties she started out with. Her big English hit. a sinewy version of Etta James’ “I’d Rather Go Blind,” was the mold from which nearly all of her latter-day ballads for ■ Fleetwood Mac have been cast, and Christine’s own “Let Me Go (Leave Me Alone)” and “Close To Me” show slightly rockier editions of the same foolproof blueprint.

Although The Legendary Christine Perfect Album cannot be touted as a must on your record shopping list, it can be heartily recommended for anglophiles and others who prefer their blues to be filtered through the contemporary frame of reference. And both long-time and newly indoctrinated Fleetwood Mac fans (especially those who favor their Bare Trees/Future Games period) are the ones at whom this LP has been craftily aimed. Pick it up before it slips back into oblivion.

Gary Kenton

FLO& EDDIE

Moving Targets

(Columbia)

I don’t know if moving targets is really the best way to describe Flo and Eddie. They’re really more like guerilla bathyspheres in the sewage sledge of contemporary rock, setting off little depth charges that disrupt the status quo of 70s cultural atrophy, then running off, shooting moons at those who threaten them and shake their fists at their bad manners. If Philip Goodhand-Tait was to preside over a meeting of all those whom Flo and Eddie have publicly slung mud at over the years, the roster would read like the encyclopedia of rock. Nothing is sacred to them and that’s precisely why we like them so much. All the world loves a clown.

Of course, there’s much more to the Flo and Eddie story than their unique brand of rampant bozoism that was so well documented on Illegal, Immoral and Fattening. That album was more of a survival move than anything else. The two of them needed an audience desperately and the when - all -else - fails - make - ’em - laugh ploy worked. Yet despite all of their shenanigans, Flo and Eddie are pretty serious when it come to making music. Their two Reprise albums were both great pop LPs. The only problem was that no one was listening. Now, with some degree of acceptance, Flo and Eddie are back concentrating on their music, and they’re not giving an inch either. No routines, very few impressions, just a lot of good music.

If Moving Targetshas a theme it’s that Flo and Eddie can be stand-up comics but they’d rather write songs and sing ’em. The title song lashes out at those who would pigeonhole them (“Are you happy that we’ve straightened up our act . . . Don’t you wish you could get your money back?”). Similarly, both “Keep It Warm” and “Mama Open Up? make clear Flo and Eddie’s latest negotiating demands with the world at large; that every once in a while they should be taken seriously. It’s not that this record isn’t fun, ’cause it is—vGuns,” “Hot,” “Best Possible Me” (a kind of mini-“Marmendy Mill”), are great rollicking numbers. But it’s simple, unadorned rock ‘n’ roll fun, and Flo and Eddie are, as you'll find when you listen to Moving Targets, as good at making real rock ‘n’ roll records as they are at making real rock ‘n’ roll comedy.

Billy Altman

DWI6HTHV1LLEYBAND

Sincerely

(Shelter)

As encouraging as “I’m On Fire” was, Dwight Twilley’s debut album reveals he has a long ways to go. Twilley is clearly a pop fanatic, as opposed to a hard rocker; pop rims so deeply in his veins that he actually has the chutzpah and bad business sense to put 12 cuts on his album instead of 10, just like they did back in the days when albums listed at $4.98 instead of $6.98.

Twilley’s vocal style is based almost entirely on the Beatles—nobody sounds this English anymore except Americans like Twilley. The music flaunts his other sources: “Could Be Love” quotes instrumentally from “Boy From New York City,” “You, Were So Warm” places the Beatles harmonies over a track that goes from the Byrds to the Beatles and back to the Byrds, “TV” follows a standard surf progression and “Release Me” echoes the sounds of the Fifties. Exactly where one locates Dwight Twilley in all this remains open to question. If there’s a* true pop personality or personal vision hidden underneath his admirable taste in influences, I hope he brings it out for his next album. Arid for all their surface appeal, too many of the cuts here aren’t songs so much as they are ideas for songs, that need to be further developed.

Finally, Twilley badly needs a real band. On this set, he handles guitar and keyboards, while his main partner, Phil Seymour, takes drums and bass. This doubling up—especially on the rhythm section—results in a certain flabbiness that does not behoove pop. If he can get an instrumental sound as crisp as his vocals, and tighten up the arrangements to match it, Twilley might just start fulfilling the promise he shows here. If not, we are probably saddled with another Eric Carmen: well-intentioned, to be sure, but insubstantial and ultimately as annoying as cockroaches in the chocolate chip cookie jar.

John Morthland

DELBERT McC LINTON

Genuine Cowhide

,' (ABC)

What I wanna know is where the hell is Billy Swan’s name on the cover? Don’t see it nowhere. All I see is that from the looks-o-things somebody hasn’t gotten his dogbone wet in a year of Sundays (’cepting maybe at shower-time or naked in a rainstorm or a beer mighta got spilt on him at a party) ’cause that there impression of a scumbag (YES, THATS WHAT ME AND MY PEOPLE USED TO CALL ’EM WAY BACK WHEN AND STILL DO ’cause in my numerous travels I have found that some folks actually call ’em weird stuff like “rubbers” and “condoms” and even “prophylactics” when in actuality they’re just talkin’ about everyday garden variety scumbags) on the outside of the wallet must’ve taken at least 10-11 months to work its way through the genuine cowhide if that’s what it really is ’cause I’ve had one in my own wallet since last Xmas (“just in case”—haven’t needed it yet tho, ’cause nowadays women have a system or two of their own so you don’t even need a wallet to carry) so I oughta know (not sure if mine is cowhide tho, so 1 could be wrong).

Anyway, there’s not a single dang mention of Billy Swan, who in actuality is really doin’ all the singin’, on the cover unless I am very much mistaken but, hmm, let’s see, there’s lotsa names and everything on the sleeve—too many to sift thru for the likes of me (a very poor reader; I’VE ONLY READ 20-25 BOOKS IN MY ENTIRE LIFE THAT I DIDN’T HAFTA FOR EITHER SCHOOL OR REVIEWS) so in lieu of hurting my eyes I guess I ain’t really got much of a case for the B. Swan claim, so I’ll just retract it here and now and get down to reviewing this real good elpee of oldies or whatever they are that’s without doubt the second best long player of the entire annum (’76, that is—y’never know when these things’ll be getting printed up), second only to Cledus Maggard’s The White Knight (Mercury).

Yeah, this album is real good (real good) but y’know, it ain’t exactly gonna be the easiest thing in the world to tell ya all the whys-‘n’wherefores of exactly why the hell I should be makin’ such an outrageous claim ’cause, well, I just went to the closet and counted up all the rec revs I’ve ever wrote and lemme tell ya, I ain’t lyin’ when I say truthfully that this is the 2384th album writeup I have been employed to script so, well, how the hell much do I got left to say about wax and music and even covers that I ain’t said at least 932 times already if not 2383? Really hate to repeat myself so I’ll just avoid the standard usual honest pap like “it sure beats heck outa South Side Johnny’s attempt at same” (military metaphor), “contains a better version of ‘Let the Good Times Roll’ than J ohnny & Edgar Winter” (mere comparison), “my real good pal Mr. Nick Tosches is real good pals with Mr. McClinton and I’ll take his word for it” (nepotism) and “it sure does rock out” (pleasure principle) and just tell ya which cuts I like the best: all of ’em (said it was a good’unl).

All I wanna know is how come it’s us overworked veterans of the write gam6 who gotta keep plunkin’ out these reviews and not the musicians themselves (a thankless lot) and what I also wanna know’s in thanx for all we’ve done for ’em over the years so far when the heck’re they gonna start at least doin’ songs about us (a fair trade) if not a whole entire “concept” LP now and then (like frinstance Bil/y Altman Is Cookin’ Out Daddy by J ohn Mayall or Richard C. Walls: God’s Gift to the State of Michigan by Uriah Heep), just somethin’ I’d like to know, y’know?

Note to ABC: that line about “second best in ’76” may be quoted as much as you like (cause it’s true).

R. Meltzer

SPIRIT

Farther Along

(Mercury)

Back in my salad days, when I was green with ingested cannabis, the early albums of Spirit spun many a revery-inducing mile on my battered. dayglo-daubed hi-fi. It was 1969, perhaps the most frantic year in the history of pop music, with everybody and his bro and sis trying to squeeze thru the gates of Eden reportedly left ajar by Hendrix, et al. a couple of years before.

With all the kozmic blooz and Nashville skyscraping littering the pop arena, I was entranced with Spirit’s cool pursuit of their own idiosyncratic vision, apparently untouched by any of the righteous styles of the day. Never really rock ‘n’ roll (except for the brilliantly-calculated Top 40 payoff, “1 Got a Line On You”). not quite jazz (even if leftover bebop drummer “Cass” Cassidy was). Spirit’s music existed and thrived in a unique cosmos far beyond the psychedildo rackjobbing of ’69.

Guitarist Randy California was my hero in Spirit, principally for the toenail-curling propensities of his wavering-drone leads (hot on pot!), but also for his Dionysian/Apollonian creative tension matchup (as I saw it) with vocalist Jay Ferguson: California, the frizzy-headed bizarro Zionist vs. that archetypal blond pretty-boy goy Ferguson. (Lennon vs. McCartney for the Colonies.) California’s pulsating “I Got a Line On You" vs. Ferguson’s weepy ballad. “The Drunkard."

So now. five years after the breakup of Spirit, with 80 percent of the original band reunited under California's leadership, Ferguson as yet a prideful holdout (McCartney all over again). Farther Along should be the best Spirit album ever, right? Wrong. On his own (Cassidy, keyboardist John Locke, and bassist Mark Andes are still providing their accustomed loyal rhythms), California does songs that sound like vintage Jay Ferguson ballads: soft voice, softer guitar, painless grins of love. With Ferguson having played boogiemeister to his metallic JoJo Gunne in the interim, it’s appropriate to quote another Chuck Berry title: you never can tell.

' Farther Along is a classic Spirit album, with sweet melodies, softly surreal lyrics, pleasant instrumentals. all the old touches, but precious little edge to any of it. California’s swirly leads are conspicuously absent. but it’s up to him whether he wants to play them anymore. And I'm not optimistic that enticing that misjudged rocker Jay Ferguson back to Spirit will make much difference at this point.

You can round up the people from their times, but reconstructing the times is another matter indeed. The collective tensions we toiled under in '69 (imminent draft notices for me: who knows what psychedelic urgencies for Spirit) are long gone, with Spirit’s incisive edge seemingly lost with them.

Richard Riegel

AMERICAN FLYER

(United Artists)

When first informed of the batting order of American Flyer, I must admit I was a bit wary. I just couldn’t imagine why Doug Yule (Velvet Underground) , Steve Katz (Blues Project; Blood, Sweat and Tears), Craig Fuller (Pure Prairie League) and Eric Kaz (now I’ve heard that name somewhere before . . . let’s just assume that he’s a friend of Bob Dylan) would want to hang out . together. I fantasized that it was some perverted attempt to demonstrate the progress rock ‘n’ roll has made by bringing together four musicians from widely diverse backgrounds who assimilate their years of experience into one magical album bound to alter the lives of the masses. Well, a four-man Bruce Springsteen they’re not (thank G-d), but they do make a fairly pleasant attempt at some easy listening rock.

A lot of this record has to do with producer George Martin. Educated fans and musicians know what this man can do in the studio. He took three boring hippies (America) and actually.made them into one of the better singles bands around. His sound is commercially slick but doesn’t forfeit emotion and personality. American Flyer, however,' is so smooth and so easy to listen to that you might actually forget that you have it on and walk out of the house with the turntable still spinning, a terrible waste of electricity if ever 1 saw one.

The problem is that although this is a band of songwriters none of them really excel at it, and while I personally think that it’s real swell that every tune here is a love song, I don’t think I’ve ever met any of the girls they sing about. While some bands warble on about real females and experiences, I believe American Flyer sings about women Carl Sandburg rejected. Did you ever have “■amber memories” about a “browneyed mountain girl”? If I did I certainly wouldn’t advertise it.

Still, one appreciates the professionalism of the musicians involved. All four write songs without stepping on each other’s shoes with Fuller, who has one of the great undiscovered throats in America, standing out. A nice little touch is the lack of solos which would take your attention away from the songs which remain in the spotlight. These guys know their limitations. They’ve been on the scene long enough to know that individually they couldn’t cut it on an album. Together, they function pretty well though, and while this record won’t cure cancer, it ain’t Legionaires disease either.

Adny Shernoff