I first heard of Jackson Browne in the autumn of 1976. Until then (and in fact, since then) I had listened almost entirely to British music, but the music magazines of the day suddenly gushed enthusiastically about Browne, which persuaded me to give him a chance. I distinctly remember an excellent piece about him in Rolling Stone, but there were other articles as well.
I still remember walking to the Golders Green branch of "Our Price Records" (which was near enough my "local") and asking to hear Browne's latest (and fourth) recording, "The pretender". This album starts with "The fuse"; I heard the opening E minor chord and immediately knew which chord would follow (C). "The fuse" is actually a very powerful track, and on the basis of that alone, I bought the album. Although there were a few tunes which were a bit naff, I very much liked the album as a whole and so started a Jackson Browne binge which lasted several years.
I listened to "The pretender" again the other day and I have to admit that my opinion has changed somewhat. This is the most produced and arranged of the early Browne albums, qualities which can be both a good thing and a bad thing, especially as I gave up on his albums due to a serious lack of harmonic language. It's certainly much more varied than the obsessively monotonic "Late for the sky", which was its direct predecessor (I would like to think that Browne realised that he needed a little more variety in his music after LFTS and so turned to Jon Landau as his first external producer).
"The fuse" is certainly powerful in its execution, features several interesting chord changes and also some intriguing vocal stylings as well as a real instrumental performance. Unfortunately, it stands almost alone in the Browne discography. Both of the following two tracks come from different musical backgrounds, ones which I admit I do not like, and neither displays much in terms of harmony. "Here come those tears again" is a well-executed pop song, but not much more. "The only child" is another standout, as is "Sleep's dark and silent gate". At the time, the schizophrenic nature of "Daddy's tune" didn't bother me, but now it does. Again, an inventive arrangement, but Browne is forced to sing loud and this exposes the weakness of his voice. The eponymous title track which closes the album is almost a tour de force: on the one hand, it does have a lot going for it, but it too suffers from that generic LA sound which I dislike.
On reflection, the major culprit of my dislike would be Waddy Wachtel's guitar sound: a thin, anaemic, LA sound, far away from the bite of David Lindley's slide guitar (as featured on "The fuse"). Unsurprisingly, Lindley had been a major contributor to Browne's earlier albums, and would return for the following "Running on easy" album, recorded on the road (but not really a live album).
As monotonic as it is, Browne's third album "Late for the sky", with its Magritte inspired cover, has a run of three songs which are amongst the best he has ever recorded: "Fountain of sorrow", 'Farther on' and "The late show". But it is his 'sophomore effort' (as the Americans breezily term it), "For everyman", ironically composed mainly of songs written prior to the release of his first album, which is, in my humble opinion, the peak of Browne's achievements.
It's acoustic (except for a raucous (and disposable) "Red neck friend", featuring Elton John), it's lyrically inventive, it's highly melodic and it's also intimate ... which leads me to believe that that's how I like Jackson Browne: quiet, acoustic, melodic and bearing good lyrics. Some of the arrangements tend to the homogenous (the title track is an example), but some are outstanding ("Colors of the sun", "These days") and some are like meeting an old friend ("Sing my songs to me").
The fact that I have eight Browne albums on vinyl and only three on cd (of which only one gets played fairly regularly) speaks for itself.
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