FAITHFUL

When I bought this album, the day it came to the shelves in our local record store, I was as yet unaware of the songs that Todd chose to so "faithfully" reproduce. My naïveté might be understandable as my musical world had been limited to my mother's love for 60s folk and The Beatles, my father's lover for New Orleans jazz, Sergio Mendes & Brazil '66 and Herb Albert & the Tijuana Brass, my brother's penchant for The Rolling Stones and 1970s hard rock, and my own fixation with AM Top 30 on CKLW (Motown R&B). Plus, Side One's reproductions were so precise, so spot on, that it was kind of a waste of time to listen to them when you could go to the originals. Side two had some listenable stuff from Todd and his steadfast line up of collaborators in Siegler, Powell, and Wilcox--most notably "Black and White" and "Love for the Common Man." In retrospect, the achievement of such pristine carbon copies of the covers on Side One is no small accomplishment; Todd should be lauded more for having done so. Thus the four star rating.