Danny O’Keefe - So Long, Harry Truman
Posted by: Sal in Sal's Boutique, tags: danny o'keefe
The Wiki on Danny O’Keefe is that he was born in Spokane, cut his teeth in the clubs of Minnesota, got on Atlantic by singing to Ahmet Ertegun over the phone, cut a half dozen albums (and a Top 10 single) in the mid-seventies and then retired to The Home For Folk Singers Who Were On Atlantic In the Seventies (10:00AM: go for walk in country; 12:00PM: nap; 2:00PM: start own record label; 6:00PM: do environmental activist’s concert).
This album, the last he recorded for Atlantic in 1975 (three years after scoring with Good Time Charlie’s Got The Blues) is an album with a goal: to show that O’Keefe can handle more than a style or two. There are narratives, rockers, novelties, swinging blues and ballads all spread through the album’s 10 cuts.
It was a law in California, ratified by Jerry Brown in 1969, that any musician found holding a guitar within the Los Angeles County boundaries was required to dedicate at 20% of his time trying to sound like The Eagles. To make sure he wasn’t deported back to Washington for breaking the law of the land, O’Keefe enlisted the actual Eagles themselves to play on the record. The results were mixed: Covered Wagon definitely does sound like the Eagles (hmmm, is that Randy Meisner?) but it tries too hard to be a rocker. Later, Steel Guitar suffers from not knowing whether its Texas Swing or Delta Blues.
The narratives also try too hard to be relevant. Hard Times is so unoriginal that, five minutes later, I found myself humming Holding On by Ambrosia. The Kid/The Last Days, with O’Keefe reciting Garcia Lorca in Spanish, is one of those songs that makes me feel embarrassed to be in the same room with my ears. Elton John and Billy Joel both managed to tame the wild west in a much more charming fashion; twenty years later, Robert Earl Keen made it look positively easy.
All is not lost, however. The title cut, with its post-Watergate, post-Vietnam cry for “a decent man,” and The Delta Queen, which shows off O’Keefe’s range are treasures. Most remarkable are the ballads: Quits with John Boylan’s airy production and It’s Been a Good Day, with it’s easy groove and Tom Scott sax part are a joy, as well.
Danny O’Keefe - The Delta Queen
Buy-O-Meter
LP ($1.50 at the thrift store) Highly Recommended
LP ($14.50 on eBay) Not so much
CD ($9.26 on CD Connection) No thanks
DOWNLOAD (.99 per song on Amazon) PICK THE GOOD ONES: So Long, Harry Truman; Quits; The Delta Queen; and It’s Been A Good Day
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