THE BYRDS
Byrds
CHERRY RED
6/10
Patchy 1973 reunion album back in print
It must have given David Crosby some satisfaction that six years after McGuinn and Hillman kicked him out of The Byrds, he became the kingpin on the album that reunited the band’s original lineup for the first time since Gene Clark’s departure in 1966. The result was a record that sounded more like a CSNY tribute, with Crosby’s shimmering version of “Laughing” from his solo debut and his impassioned take on Joni Mitchell’s “For Free” as the highlights. Hillman’s “Things Will Be Better” and “Borrowing Time” sound like Manassas outtakes, and Clark sings tame versions of Neil Young’s “Cowgirl In The Sand” and “(See the Sky) About To Rain”. As for McGuinn, he’s so not the band leader any longer that he gets just two showcases, on the rather good “Sweet Mary” and the frankly execrable “Born To Rock’n’Roll”. But it’s worth the entrance fee for Crosby’s benefactions alone.
NIGEL WILLIAMSON
TYMON DOGG
Battle Of Wills (reissue, 1982)
TINY GLOBAL
7/10
Joe Strummer’s mentor fights the power, and himself
Tymon Dogg was already self-exiled from the music business when he became Joe Strummer’s formative guide as a busker and 101’er. He got the call for Sandinista!, Combat Rock and the Mescaleros, but this long-deleted release shows his own recalcitrant strengths. The piratical synth-folk of “Once You Know”, with its buzzing violins and tablas, suggests an existential hole hampering Dogg’s battle with oppressive authority. The title track sees street-level agitprop leavened by poetic flights (“Well it’s not in the”). Most strikingly, Dogg’s extreme voice is unhinged from acceptability, quavering, leaping and keening, hectoring then gently vulnerable.
