Sal’s Boutique

I’m in the middle of three music books right now: The Rock Snob’s Dictionary and Lost In The Grooves are great books to drop in on when you have a few minutes waiting in the grocery line. The Mansion on the Hill by Fred Goodman requires a bit more concentration. It’s Goodman’s perspective on how rock and roll went from being a product of the underground to simply being a product, largely through work and personalities of three people: Albert Grossman, Jon Landau and David Geffen.

David Geffen gets quite a bit of ink, from his beginning at William Morris to his founding of Elektra/Asylum and Geffen Records.

Goodman recounts how Geffen was behind the signing of Crosby, Stills and Nash on Atlantic Records, how he irked off the guys in Poco when he tried to recruit Richie Furay for this project and, ultimately, lost the management of the Eagles to Irving Azoff over what the band considered an unfair contract arrangement. It’s a balanced accounting of Geffen’s early career, weighing his desire for fame against his frustration over his failures.

As was often the case, however, Geffen got his way in the end. He managed to bring J.D. Souther, Chris Hillman and Richie Furay together and this album was one of the spoils of victory. The first of three they recorded, this was intended to be the first salvo over the bow of the country rock wars, proving to the world that Geffen could create as super a group as anyone else. Unfortunately, it didn’t quite happen that way.

As with many projects composed of star parts (Little Village being the first to come to mind), the elements didn’t coalesce quite the way they might have. There are Souther songs, there are Hillman songs and there are Furay songs, all pleasant and well executed. But there aren’t any band songs and that leaves the album feeling incomplete.

There are some highlights, though. The ill-fated drummer of great renown Jim Gordon lays downs some terrific drum work and Al Perkins contributes some nice work on dobro and steel guitar.

And there are some good songs. Contrary to what Brett Hartenbach says in his All Music Guide review, the best songs are actually those written by Souther. Both The Heartbreaker and Border Town swing with the distinctive sound that made California rock the coolest thing in 1974; Pretty Goodbyes is certainly Eagles-esque (but, well, pretty, just the same) and Deep, Dark and Dreamless, though a little self-indulgent, has some nice textures.

The verdict? For $1.50 at the Salvation Army store, it was worth the price of admission (if for nothing else than the over the top southern California neon graphics). If I had bought it when it first came out (for probably $3.98) I would’ve probably felt pretty good about my purchase; being that I was 12, I probably would’ve played it to death. For the price of a CD today, though, even if it were only $7.99, I’d take a pass.

Border Town

Pretty Goodbyes

The Flight of The Dove

This entry was posted on Sunday, October 12th, 2008 at 8:54 pm and is filed under Sal's Boutique.You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.