There was a mini-genre of
singer/songwriters
in the late '60s and early '70s that has never gotten a name. They were folky but not exactly
folk-rock
and certainly not laid-back; sometimes pissed off but not full of rage; alienated but not incoherent;
psychedelic
-tinged but not that weird; not averse to using orchestration in some cases but not that elaborately produced. And they sold very few records, eluding to a large degree even rediscovery by collectors.
Jeff Monn
,
Paul Martin
John Braheny
, and
Billy Joe Becoat
were some of them, and
Sixto Rodriguez
was another on his 1970 LP,
Cold Fact
. Imagine an above-average
Dylanesque
street busker managing to record an album with fairly full and imaginative arrangements, and you're somewhat close to the atmosphere.
Rodriguez
projected the image of the aloof, alienated
songwriter, his songs jammed with gentle, stream-of-consciousness, indirect putdowns of straight society and its tensions. Likewise, he had his problems with romance, simultaneously putting down (again gently) women for their hang-ups and intimating that he could get along without them anyway ("I wonder how many times you had sex, and I wonder do you know who'll be next" he chides in the lilting
"I Wonder"
). At the same time, the songs were catchy and concise, with dabs of inventive backup: a dancing string section here, odd
electronic
yelps there, tinkling steel drums elsewhere. It's an album whose lyrics are evocative yet hard to get a handle on even after repeated listenings, with song titles like
"Hate Street Dialogue,"
"Inner City Blues"
(not the
Marvin Gaye
tune), and
"Crucify Your Mind"
representative of his eccentric, slightly troubled mindset. As it goes with
-
psych
possessing captivating non sequitur turns of the phrase, he's just behind
Arthur Lee
and
Skip Spence
, but still worth your consideration. ~ Richie Unterberger