THE TURN OF A FRIENDLY CARD

Turn of a Friendly Card was somewhat of a surprise hit album for the Project in 1980, mostly because they were coming off two pretty weak albums, and the majority of the seventies icons were fast becoming quite unpopular in the face of new wave and MTV. The inspiration for the album has been credited to Phil Dick’s weird sci-fi novel “The Game- Players of Titan” and obviously is centered around the theme of gambling. Eric Woolfson has said in later interviews that the songs were generally just about some issues he was going through in his personal life and are mostly about gambling in life terms and not necessarily about craps or blackjacks per se. Whatever.

The album spawned a couple of hit singles, and was the first Parsons would not lead off with a spacey instrumental. Instead he launches the record with “May Be a Price to Pay”, a brooding chant about sorcerers and sinister doings and such. Kind of an interesting tune, but the lyrics really don’t make much sense. Elmer Gantry (aka Dave Terry of the 60s psychedelic novelty group Elmer Gantry’s Velvet Opera) is credited on lead vocals.

“Games People Play” was one of the Project’s biggest hit singles, and aside from some mildly interesting keyboard work and decent guitars, is basically a very 80s-sounding MTV pop song. The rhythm is quite catchy and ex-Gonzales singer Lenny Zakatek lends some serviceable vocals, but here again the lyrics don’t make much sense and are probably intentionally ambiguous.

The ballad-like “Time” is a typical Parsons mellow mood piece, and also marks the first time Eric Woolfson was given the microphone for the lead vocals. Woolfson often recorded vocals in the studio during early recording sessions, but was usually replaced with a featured singer in the final cuts. This album was recorded in France and Parsons didn’t have anyone else available at the time, so Woolfson was allowed to lay down the final cut. The result was another hit single and quite a beautiful song, although it bears some suspicious resemblances to the song of the same name that Parsons produced on Dark Side of the Moon, with its slow, meandering guitars and moody vocals, as well as pseudo-meaningful sound effects and disembodied backing vocals.

“I Don't Wanna’ Go Home” is another Zakatek song, this one a surprisingly bitter and crass indictment of a poor sod who has bet and lost all he has, and now is just another pitiful slob outside a casino who can’t even buy attention. A bit of a departure for the normally rather demure Parsons.

Now granted – this isn’t really a progressive album of any sort whatsoever, but the keyboards and guitar on “The Gold Bug” are actually pretty decent, as are the horn accompaniment and ambient backing choral. This actually gets my vote as the second best track on the album.

The orchestral accompaniment on the “Turn of a Friendly Card” suite (if you can call it a suite) is well-done and sets a believable mood for this tale of raw-luck gamblers. On the original album this was a side-long work, but for some reason it got busted up into five segments on the CD release. Chris Rainbow (aka Chris Harley with an apparent urge to find a cooler stage name) sings lead on all but (anti-)climactic “Nothing Left to Lose”, for which Woolfson makes another appearance.

This also isn’t really much of a progressive work, but at least it serves to make this album an improvement over the uninspired Eve and the bland Pyramid. Just enough so to merit three stars, and some decent memories from my youth.

peace