Straight Outta Sherman Oaks

I've avoided posting these antecedently because you guys must have them already. But just in case you need copies "for a friend", here they are. They comprise the core of Rick Nelson's country-rock period with the sheerly excellent Stone Canyon Band, and it's swell listening.

Rick Sings Nelson, from 1970, gets a hip comment from "Reefer Sutherland" over at Discogs that's worth quoting here: "It's all very mellow, man, but just below the surface, in the realm of nightmares, both waking and nocturnal, there is a speed-nervous, creeped-out energy, trying hard to be ignored ..."

For the following year's Rudy The Fifth (the brand of cheap domestic "champagne" MCA's A&R guy presented to Nelson on completing the recording), Nelson wisely included some covers. A good songwriter knows his limits. 

Garden Party repeated the formula, but gave him a surprise hit in the title track. And the cover is perfect, getting the balance between rock and country exactly right.

Windfall, '74, came with a crisis of sales and label confidence - take up the story with the earlier post at Th' House O' Foam© [Late Rick - December - Ed.].

It's a fine run of albums, and if you let them, they'll work their way into you life and make you feel better.