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COLLECTORS CHOICE (www.ccmusic.com)
ROY DRUSKY/Greatest Hits Vols. 1 & 2: Drusky seems all but forgotten today but for a time in the 60’s and 70s he was one of the country kings of the hill selling superstar like tonnage. This twofer gathers both of his greatest hits sets that boiled it all down. With his edgy Eddy Arnold style, he was comfortably uptown with one foot on the farm. A nice set of pre-crossover country loaded with edgy, witty tunes, many of which will ring a bell in the back of you head if you’re a casual country fan. Dandy stuff that’s worth more than being a footprint in the dust of history that doesn’t seem to be getting it’s due today.
764
DORY PREVIN: Previn cut a series of well received adult pop for UA with producer Nik Venet. Her shows were well attended, she had her pop cred and the move to the home of singer songwriters seemed like a natch. WB released this divorcee music classic right into the maw of the 1974 oil crisis and the hoped for big break out never happened and unfortunately, no one ever wrote a check for them to work together again. Obviously, there were things very particular to the 70’s, but do divorce feelings ever change? This set is still zesty throughout and does an incredible job of pinging all the right notes. You don’t have to be a divorcee to appreciate this, but if you’ve ever dug Joni Mitchell etc, this could be a great discovery for you if you are uninitiated.
786
DORY PREVIN/We’re Children of Coincidence and Harpo Marx: Unfortunately, this would be Previn’s last record. Being older than the average folk rocker, not liking to travel and feeling written out lead to this being the end of the line. The recording was treated as a grand send off with a killer retinue of talent backing her up throughout. The material was on apar with the rest of her work and isn’t to be treated as a lesser. Previn existed on her own plane and this last chapter of her bar raising divorcee rock is to be treated as such as well.
785
SERGIO MENDES & BRAZIL 77/Homecooking (789); And the New Brazil 77 (790): After a career killing move in to MOR at a time when things were getting funkier, these two albums were the building blocks for Mendes to stage his comeback that would take several years to bring into focus. Taking back the reigns and bring in the best Brazil and gringo cats he could muster (and none of them were chopped liver), the reclamation had begun. It took a lot of work to shake off the MOR patina and prove he was serious about letting the groove run free but this set found him going into Stevie Wonder’s gravitational pull ( a nice place to be in the late 70s) and letting the vibe flow from there. Mendes was always a cool cat and these return from detour might not have gotten the sales and respect they should have gotten in the crush of disco, but these are mistakes the missteps of time can fix. Hell, the new generation must be digging him for a reason.
Volume 30/Number 175
April 24, 2007
MIDWEST RECORD
830 W. Route 22 #144
Lake Zurich, IL., 60047
CHRIS SPECTOR, Editor and Publisher
(c)2007 Midwest Record
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