HIDDEN GEM
Mayo Thompson
Corky’s Debt To His Father
1970 | Texas Revolution

It’s a little difficult to deconstruct something like Red Krayola founder Mayo Thompson’s lone solo album, Corky’s Debt To His Father, when one has no point of reference for the artist’s more celebrated work. I know absolutely nothing about Red Krayola, save that they have been around for decades, making avant-garde rock records and serving a niche market I will probably never even begin to understand or appreciate. But the cover looked cool, the album had been reissued by Drag City, and I couldn’t tell if the group was called “Mayo Thompson” or “Corky’s Debt To His Father,” so I was sold.

What followed upon first listen was neither the country record I’d expected, nor the noise/“out” record I’d feared. (I’ve only recently, tentatively, dipped my toe into avant-garde/noise/“out” music, and so am often still skeptical). Nope, Corky’s Debt To His Father falls specifically into that realm of bizarre, uncategorizable folk that often hews dangerously close to the abyss of self-indulgence, and almost certainly involves some sort of illness or tragedy. Three records sprang immediately to mind upon hearing Corky’s Debt To His Father: Alex Chilton’s 1970 (a long-shelved solo debut that came after the Box Tops broke up, but before Big Star formed), Skip Spence’s Oar (recorded entirely by Spence, in the very first few days after he’d been released from a six month stay in Bellevue Hospital for schizophrenia) and Stephen Jesse Bernstein’s Prison (Bernstein’s lone spoken-word album, released by Sub Pop after the troubled poet took his own life in October, 1991).
More on Mayo Thompson | Corky’s Debt To His Father

HIDDEN GEM
Nick Drake
Bryter Layter
1970 | Island Records

It’s getting dangerously close to the time of year when it’s too sunny to listen to Nick Drake, so here goes:  I have always thought Drake’s second album, Bryter Layter, is superior, in most aspects, to Pink Moon – the solo acoustic swansong that everyone else slobbers over. Now this is not to say that Pink Moon is not the tragic, understated masterpiece that it’s touted to be. In fact, if any artist in recorded history has not just one perfect album, but a perfect catalog, it’s Drake. Bryter Layter, recorded when Drake had gained the interest (and money) of whoever was in charge at Island Records, but hadn’t yet sunk into complete despondence, is a gorgeous, autumnal album.
More on Nick Drake | Bryter Layter

HIDDEN GEM
Nick Drake
Bryter Layter
1970 | Island Records

It’s getting dangerously close to the time of year when it’s too sunny to listen to Nick Drake, so here goes:  I have always thought Drake’s second album, Bryter Layter, is superior, in most aspects, to Pink Moon – the solo acoustic swansong that everyone else slobbers over. Now this is not to say that Pink Moon is not the tragic, understated masterpiece that it’s touted to be. In fact, if any artist in recorded history has not just one perfect album, but a perfect catalog, it’s Drake. Bryter Layter, recorded when Drake had gained the interest (and money) of whoever was in charge at Island Records, but hadn’t yet sunk into complete despondence, is a gorgeous, autumnal album.
More on Nick Drake | Bryter Layter

Hidden Gem:
Lee Michaels
Barrel
1970 | A&M

Thumbing through dollar bins at record shops can be depressing, particularly when the pickings are slim. Plumbing the depths of milk crates jammed with forgotten vinyl, which no longer lie on shag carpets and basement floors, but in mounds that neglect their prior value, that reject what they once might have meant to someone, somewhere, upon their original release, is a real downer. Here lie bands without a myth, un-legendary singers, devalued albums that once topped the charts, last names written in faded Sharpie ink on moldy album covers. Indefinitely, these albums and their memories remain in $1.00 purgatory, doomed to a needle-less existence.
More on Record Review: Barrel