THOSE WHO KNOW HISTORY ARE DOOMED TO REPEAT IT

Despite the fact that this is an album made up entirely of cover songs (maybe because of that) this is one of my favorite Henry Kaiser albums. Kaiser tends to get a little too far away from structured music for my tastes when he his left alone to create songs. And what a strange array of songs to cover. There are two songs by The Grateful Dead (Mason's Children and Dark Star, both of which appear, from different takes on "Eternity Blue", Kaiser's tribute to The Dead), a bunch of Captain Beefheart covers, one Country Joe & The Fish tune, and three surprisingly good country songs. The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance and The Fishin' Hole, the well-known theme from The Andy Griffith Show (with lyrics!) are an unexpected treat. But Ode To Billy Joe, with smoky vocals by Cary Sheldon, is just one of the coolest songs on the planet.

The CD version is worth getting over the LP, as it has four extra tracks, and Billy Joe and Dark Star are both much longer than the original release.

Holy crap! The theme song to The Andy Griffith show has lyrics? Who knew? (On a side note, old Andy is still alive and kicking as I write this because I saw him in a commercial recently.)

My first encounter with Kaiser non-Willhelm was a duo album with my man Frith. It was a best difficult listening music. And with friends like these...

But, I ran across this browsing at a local record store (they still make those?) and decided to give it a try.

Why do I get the feeling this one of Henry's more accessible albums? To be honest, I haven't had the courage to dig much deeper into his work, (other than French Frith Kaiser Thompson) but I really liked this one and still do. What an eclectic set of covers this is. Theme songs, Grateful Dead (at last they are on this site indirectly, ah ha ha ha), Captain Beefheart tunes???

I think what gave me the courage to try this one was the covers of Beefheart songs l like A Carrot Is A Close To A Rabbit Gets To A Diamond, which I knew and really liked. Plus local Atlanta guitar legend Glenn Phillips and Dixie Dregsman Andy West on bass.

What can I say? One of the albums that makes a good case that the '80's didn't totally suck.