All Pearls, No Swine: Borne Back Ceaselessly Into The Past...

Back to the roots! Back to the start! Back to the Seventies! Back to the birthplace of our popular long-running series, with the usual 20 tracks of rare, ultrarare or underappreciated gems. You might recognize some of the names on this volume - Del Shannon, Ted Neely, Wayne Berry, Dennis Linde - but probably not these songs. Ted Neely, made a (not quite super) star, albeit briefly, by Jesus Christ Superstar, sings Wayne Berry's instant classic "Another's Lifetime", and actually was the first to issue that song, albeit without much success. Berry himself is present with "New Lovers, Old Friends", an outtake from the early 70s that I couldn't fit on any of the three alternate albums (which you can find here, here and here) I did for this ridiculously underrated singer-songwriter and is thus having its premiere here. Shannon was, like many stars of the doo wop and early rock'n'roll era trying to make a comeback by dipping into the then-popular roots music, "Restless" is almost straight country. 

A lot of the songs on All Pearls, No Swine Vol. 32 have a bit of a groove to them, I'm happy to say, as I relisten to this, from opener Texas' "L.A. Lights"'s lit-up country rock with some slightly gospel-ish group vocals to John Randolph Marr's horn-and-soul/gospel-backing take on Delaney Bramlett's "Hello L.A. Bye Bye Birmingham" to Mylon LeFevre's soulful "Sweet Peace Within" to American Eagle's appropriately titled "Gospel" to Aliotta Haynes Jeremy's country rock take on traditional "Long Time Gone/When I Was A Cowboy" to Navasota's rocking "Canyon Ladies".

This is nicely balanced by the folk, folk rock and singer-songwriter numbers that make up the other half of All Pearls, No Swine Vol. 32. Personal favorites include "Holly Lake" from Texas songwriter David Mattson, off his 1975 private press release August Reunion, Ryan Trevor's "Blue Morning" from his only record, the self-released Introducing Ryan Trevor (Now And Then), and Bruce Kosaveach's "Feelin' Together With The World", completing the trifecta of obscure self-released singer-songwriters. Drumming on this is Joe Porcaro, father of Steve, Mike and Jeff, the latter two of Toto fame. 

There is also the original version of "Killing Me Softly With His Song" by folkie Lori Lieberman, who almost certainly was screwed out of a writing credit by the credited songwriting team. Roberta Flack's better known version has more soul, while Lieberman's version is more vulnerable, really selling the 'killing' part, the emotional slaying at the heart of the song.Speaking of folk: Acoustic folk duos were in style, so here we get Lambert & Nuttycombe (what a name!) with "Heaven Knows (Where I've Been)" and Aussies Stuart & McKay with "Tell Me", both exquisitely lovely of course. 

By now you know how I like to do my All Pearls, No Swine, so it should come as no suprise, that the psychiest, spaciest song is kept as the runout groove, it's really more interesting that it is Dennis Linde who is responsible for it. Linde is most known for a writing a string of country hits, most famously Elvis' "Burnin' Love", and did some folkish records earlier in his career, but on 1977's "Beyond The Eye", the title song from the album of the same name, he really lets his freak flag fly. It's three minutes of an uncommonly heavy (for Linde) rock song, and then about two minutes of madness, Linde playing around with synths, vodocer and the like.  

So, same as it ever was, plenty of unknown or little known folks with even less known songs - but all good stuff. For the 20th anniversary of the 70s-bound APNS, we have a truly fine selections of goodies for your delectation today...