MARRYING MAIDEN

Well, this is nowhere near as earthy and inspiring as their debut album was, but I must admit the musicianship is top-notch. It is basically an Americana experience though, jazz and blues and ragtime and bluegrass and folk and a little bit country, a little bit rock- and-roll (hey, wasn’t that an Osmonds song?).

Linda LaFlamme is out and Patti Santos is in, but otherwise it’s largely the same crew. The opening “Don and Dewey” is a nicely done violin instrumental with plenty of organ, piano, and a little brass with a lively tempo and not much substance.

“The Dolphins” reminds me of some old sixties country song with its wispy vocals, plain piano, one-two snare drum, and some odd-key violin for flavor. This isn’t even folk – it’s just a weak imitation of Hank Williams circa 1962.

The tempo kicks up a little on “Essence of Now”, a Byrds-inspired vocal display with some decent near-psychedelic guitar but more of the same as far as the drum goes. Next up is “Hoedown”, which is exactly what the title says it is. Yee-haw!

More almost-Byrds on “Soapstone Mountain” except that the lyrics are more like Claude King or some other forgotten old American country singer. Bo-ring!

“Waiting for the Song” starts off promising enough with a solid electric guitar riff and some decent harmonized vocals, but that’s all it turns out to be – 53 seconds of WTF?!

“Let a Woman Flow” sounds like a really disgusting title, kind of like Alice Cooper’s “Only Women Bleed”, but this turns out to be a mid-sixties crooner tune like something Tom Jones might have turned into a hit for blue-haired ladies on the Las Vegas strip. Props to the organ though, that’s nice at least.

That bluegrass I mentioned at the outset kicks in with “It Comes Right Down To You”, accompanied by The Ole’ Hickory Mountaintop One-Toothed Singers, or something that sounds like a group that would call themselves The Ole’ Hickory Mountaintop One- Toothed Singers anyway.

Other than the Elvis-in-Hawaii rhythm, “Good Lovin” is probably the only decent track on the album, with just enough grooving guitar to make you think these guys maybe torched a dube before recording it or something. The backing vocals sound like The Mason-Dixon Gospel Singers though, or a group that might call themselves The Mason- Dixon Gospel Singers anyway.

I like the acoustic guitar and what I believe is a French horn on “Galileo”, but just when I think this will get interesting it turns into a Yanni spoken-word kind of thing and I lose interest. Oh well.

The only reason I’m not giving this one star is for “Good Lovin” and “Do You Remember The Sun”, the latter which sounds like The Association, who I happened to like a little when I was a kid. Otherwise this is pretty much a waste of time and money, doubly so since it’s actually hard to find if you didn’t get it as a birthday present from your aunt when you were eight years old. So since I already said I won’t give it one star, I’ll give it two and Mr. LaFlamme should consider himself lucky. I think it was false advertising to call this an It’s a Beautiful Day album.

peace