Bob Carpenter Tries One More Time...(And Nobly Fails, One More Time)

Last we talked about Bob Carpenter we relayed the sad, maddening story surrounding the release of his only official record, the amazing Silent Passage. By the time that record came out almost a decade after the initial release date, Carpenter was more or less done with the idea of a successful music career. But he did give it another shot, briefly, discreetly, in the late 1970s. Carpenter went into a studio to cut a number of demos, essentially as publishing demos for other artists, or to possibly entice someone to give him another recording deal after things turned so badly with Brian Ahern and Warner Brothers. Alas, no covering spree of Carpenter songs or recording contracts followed these demo sessions, and so Carpenter floated back into, well, whatever he was doing. The really really last shot was then a couple of years later around the release of Silent Passage, but when that album didn't become a surprise bestseller, Carpenter really was done with the music business. He still gave the occasional concert and contributed a track to an obscure Canadian various artists collection in 1991. But for all intents and purposes, he was done after 1984. 

And yet, and yet, after the initial disappointment and more or less official blackballing in the mid-70s, he did try one more time, and we get One More Time out of it. There's not much info on what made Carpenter return to the studio in 1979 to cut the eight tracks that were released in 2010 by trusty Stony Plain as Eight Demos 1979. But Carpenter clearly intended these to be used or discovered. The sound is crisp and clean, and so is Carpenter's singing voice. The weird, gruff garble on some of Silent Passage looks in retrospective more and more like an artistic choice, as his voice on these songs sounds younger and fresher than on Silent Passage, where maybe he methor acted the 'gruff mountain man from the Canadian plains' persona a little too much. Also, these aren't "a man and his guitar on a tape recorder"-type demos, but rather fully produced. Spare backing all in all, sure, but tastefully done and with just enough little touches to elevate the music above 'only for cultists' level. 

Speaking of the production: You will see that the closing tracks of what would be the a- and b-sides of One More Time are quite different from the rest, no more so than on album closer "Satan's Golden Chain". That song, as well as "Mister Blue" aren't from Eight Demos 1979, but rather a Stony Plain label retrospective published a few years later. Again, I don't have much info on these tracks, but from the sound they clearly come from the 1980s, so my best guess would be that these were recorded as either a prospective promo single or follow-up single to the release of Silent Passage on Stony Plain in 1984. And while the delicate and subtle "Mister Blue" easily slides in with the unplugged feel of the record, "Satan's Golden Chain" looks like the wild card of the pack. 

It also includes all the contradictions of Bob Carpenter in one tidy (or rather:messy) package. The instrumentation is extremy slick, pure mainstream soft rock, with every production touch that an early-to-mid 80s production would imply. But of course Carpenter can not help himself and sabotages whatever (improbable) commercial appeal the song would have by including a yodeling section, several times. That's our Bob. 

One More Time doesn't have the timeless, eerie mystique of Silent Passage, apart from "Falling Night" which could have fit right in. But even these unpublished songs in their unfussy, warm arrangements are titles lesser artists would kill for. How many thousand dudes with an acoustic guitar couldn't come up with a killer tune like "Magdalena", the lovely "Dreaming" or the grooving newly minted title song "One More Time"? These songs are also less of a 'mood piece' type of music as Silent Passage was, so One More Time is an entirely different, but no less pleasant listening experience, maybe even more pleasant in some ways. 

This is great music and deserved to be heard back then. It sure as hell deserves to be heard now.