I kinda previcated about getting this album. I admire Bang records -the Van Morrison compiliation of his Bang Records sessions is, simply, essential.
And this isn’t.
The problem is, with an exception here and there, what I want I already have, and what I don’t want I don’t want for a reason. You might be in the market for Diamond over emoting “Monday Monday” or “Red Bouncing Ball” -me, I can live with out it.
What I can’t live without is his version of his own “The Boat That I Row” and “I’m A Believer”… and I am glad to add them.
I can’t live without “Solitary Man”, “Shilo”, “Girl, You’ll Be A Woman Soon”, “Kentucky Woman”, “Cherry Cherry”, “Red Red Wine”… and I have owned them for decades so i don’t have to.
After getting the boot from the Brill Building, Diamond tried to recast himself as a singer-songwriter and within four years was selling out the Greek theatre in Los Angeles on a hot August night.
These songs find him in transition from Brill Building introvert to overblown singer superstar.
I loved post-Bang Diamond when I was 15 years old. Now, I can hear what I loved about him while raising an eyebrow over the over cooked pathos he threw at, say, “Crunchy Granola Suite”. Certainly, of the IMPORTANT singer songwriters, Diamond was the kitchiest by far. There is something unbelievable about him, something, irrevocably silly.
But not during his Bang period.
Here Diamond has his ego under check even as he wrote songs that would sustain for the next 50 years
Grade: B+