Jackson Browne 1972 debut

Jackson Browne

Buy Jackson Browne

Jackson Browne 1972 debutSometimes referred to as “Saturate Before Using”, Jackson Browne‘s 1972 self-titled debut showcases his early style of composing and performing reflective ballads. This album achieved a healthy measure of commercial success and received critical acclaim which has expanded through the decades as its original compositions communicate a romantic sensibility and employ a subtle arrangement and production style. Further, while only 23 at the time of it’s release, Browne was already a quasi-veteran in the Southern California music scene, which gave him the opportunity to enlist A-list musicians and singers to back him up on this debut.

Jackson Browne was born in Germany to American parents but spent most of his childhood in California. He began performing folk songs in his teens and joined the Nitty Gritty Dirt Band shortly after graduating high school (while Browne was only in the band for a short time, the Nitty Gritty Dirt Band would later recorded a number of his compositions). After leaving the Dirt Band in 1967, Browne moved to New York City and became a writer for the publishing company Nina Music, where he had various connections with people in the folk scene. Browne contributed to Nico’s debut album Chelsea Girl and some of his songs were recorded by Tom Rush, Gregg Allman, Joan Baez, Linda Ronstadt and the Byrds before he ever recorded his own versions. After moving back to LA, Browne signed with his manager David Geffen’s new Asylum Records in 1971.

Browne’s first album featured several guest performers, including the vocal harmonies of David Crosby and Graham Nash and the guitars of Jesse Ed Davis and Albert Lee. The sessions were spearheaded by producer/engineer Richard Sanford Orshoff and recorded at Crystal Sound Recorders in Hollywood.


Jackson Browne by Jackson Browne
Released: January 1, 1972 (Asylum)
Produced by: Richard Sanford Orshoff
Recorded: Crystal Sound Recorders, Hollywood, 1971
Side One Side Two
Jamaica Say You Will
A Child in These Hills
Song for Adam
Doctor, My Eyes
From Silver Lake
Something Fine
Under the Falling Sky
Looking Into You
Rock Me on the Water
My Opening Farewell
Primary Musicians
Jackson Browne – Lead Vocals, Piano, Guitar
Jim Gordon – Organ
Leland Sklar – Bass
Russ Kunkel – Drums, Percussion

The record begins with “Jamaica Say You Will”, a melodic piano tune with the fine accompaniment of bass and drums by Leland Sklar and Russ Kunkel respectively. This song was inspired by a gardener who worked across the street from the Pacific Ocean and it had been previously released by The Byrds on their 1971 album Byrdmaniax. “A Child in These Hills” follows as an acoustic folk tune with great electric interplay by Albert Lee throughout, along with fine harmonica textures by Jimmie Fadden, especially during the train-like unique outro. The somber “Song for Adam” is pure acoustic folk with a very slight arrangement, written in memory of Browne’s friend Adam Saylor, who died in 1968 either by accident or suicide.

The upbeat pop/rocker “Doctor, My Eyes” features a thumping piano, a fine melody and layered textures of sounds which made it a Top 10 hit for Browne. The song’s lyric is a statement of a man who had stoically endured life’s hardships with a slightly optimistic view moving forward and its unique arrangement features electric guitar by Davis and congas by Kunkel. Both “From Silver Lake” and “Something Fine” are sparsely arranged folk ballads, followed by the interesting “Under the Falling Sky”, a rhythmically intense song with a lyric which paints an image of deep human connection.

Jackson Browne concludes with three fine compositions, starting with the ballad “Looking into You”, which features guests David Jackson on piano and Flying Burrito Brother Sneaky Pete Kleinow on pedal steel guitar. “Rock Me on the Water” is a gospel-like composition with a solo piano break by Craig Doerge before the tune grows more uplifting as it reaches its climax. The album concludes with the slightly melancholy and beautifully constructed “My Opening Farewell”, featuring intricate interplay between Browne’s acoustic guitar, Sklar’s bass and Doerge’s piano.

Jackson Browne

Browne set high standards with this eponymous debut but found the success hard to replicate on his subsequent albums For Everyman (1973) and Late for the Sky (1974), before he once again found commercial success starting with 1976’s The Pretender and continuing through the late 1970s and early 1980s.

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1972 Images

Part of Classic Rock Review’s celebration of 1972 albums.

Fast Times at Ridgemont High, 1982

The Movie Soundtrack

Fast Times at Ridgemont High, 1982The movie soundtrack has become a great source for discovering music. Many dramatic scenes are fully augmented by appropriate audio, which in turn drives sales of the songs themselves. It is a nice cross-marketing scheme, but as far as top quality works of new original music by various artists. there are surprisingly few of these albums that actually hold up well over time.

We’ve decided to this feature while our regular reviews look at the year 1982, because that was the year when, in our opinion, the best of these movie soundtracks was released, Fast Times at Ridgemont High. The soundtrack features songs of many of the eras quintessential rock artists, most of which were not released elsewhere on conventional artist album. Both this movie and album soundtrack ushered in a heyday for such movie soundtracks (as well as copycat movies) through the early and mid 1980s. But before we delve into the merits of this particular soundtrack, let’s look at some other important soundtracks throughout the years.

Easy Rider soundtrack, 1969A significant early soundtrack is that for the 1969 cult film Easy Rider, a film often remembered for its late 1960’s rock music. The album was a surprise chart hit, peaking at #6 on the Billboard album charts, and is most associate with a sub-genre known as “biker music”. Steppenwolf is featured most prominently, as “Born To Be Wild” is played during the opening scene and another song, “The Pusher” leads off the soundtrack itself. Other songs featured on Easy Rider include The Byrd‘s “Wasn’t Born to Follow”, “Don’t Bogart Me” by Fraternity of Man and If 6 Was 9″ by The Jimi Hendrix Experience. The producers of this soundtrack also utilized a practice which is prominent to this day. When they encountered problems in licensing the original recording of “The Weight” by The Band, they commissioned the artist Smith to record a cover version for the soundtrack. A couple more covers of Bob Dylan were recorded by Roger McGuinn for the album.

Heavy Metal soundtrack, 1981Heavy Metal was a 1981 rotoscoping-animated film, which employs various science fiction and fantasy stories adapted from Heavy Metal magazine. Due to many legal wranglings involving the copyrights of some of the music, the film and soundtrack were unavailable, except through underground, pirated copies. It was finally released on CD and videocassette (along with a simultaneous re-release in theaters) in 1996. Although the film is called “heavy metal”, the music itself includes original music from various rock genres. This includes songs by Sammy Hagar, Blue Öyster Cult, Cheap Trick, Devo, Donald Fagen, Journey, Grand Funk Railroad, Cheap Trick, Don Felder, and Stevie Nicks. Probably the only true “heavy metal” band represented is Black Sabbath, whose song “The Mob Rules” is featured.

Vision Quest soundtrack, 1985The 1985 soundtrack to the movie Vision Quest includes a nice mixture of pop and rock tunes and featured some high charting hits. These include the Madonna ballad “Crazy for You” and the song “Only the Young” by Journey, the last release by that band’s classic lineup. Other highlights from this soundtrack are “Change” by John Waite, “Hungry for Heaven” by Dio, “Lunatic Fringe” by Red Rider and “I’ll Fall in Love Again” by Sammy Hagar, one his last solo releases before joining up with Van Halen.

Pretty In Pink soundtrack, 1986The 1980s were, by far, the heyday for soundtracks, many more then we could possibly cover here. A series of teen-oriented movies by director John Hughes including The Breakfast Club, and Pretty In Pink. The music from these focused primarily on new wave artists such as Orchestral Manoeuvres in the Dark, Simple Minds, The Psychedelic Furs, New Order, Echo & the Bunnymen, and The Smiths. Several other 1980s soundtracks includes the songs by Kenny Loggins, a seventies folk singer who basically made a career out of movie soundtrack songs in the 1980s. Loggins wrote and performed “I’m Alright” from Caddyshack, the title song from Footloose, and “Danger Zone” from Top Gun, all of which were the most prominent songs from those respective films.

We’ve decided to use a rather narrow definition of this category which we’re focusing on for this profile. Basically, the main criteria is original music, recently produced, by various artists. Since this excludes, many fine soundtracks, we’ll look at some of the better which fall outside our criteria.

Artist Centric Soundtracks

Beatles' Magical Mystery Tour promoMovies which were built around the music of a specific artist have been around almost as long as there have been movies and recorded music. During the classic rock era, this was made most prominent by The Beatles, who made four movies with accompanying soundtracks of their original music. Of these, Magical Mystery Tour is the most interesting, primarily because the music is so excellent while the film itself is so terrible (later this year, we will do a regular review of this album).

Following in the Beatles footsteps were scores of these types of soundtracks for films at all different levels of production from major Hollywood worldwide productions to documentaries. Some of the best of these include David Bowie‘s 1973 Ziggy Stardust movie, Led Zeppelin 1976 rendition of The Song Remains the Same (something we’ve touched on during a previous special feature on The Live Album), The Bee Gees-centric soundtrack to Saturday Night Fever, Prince‘s 1984 blockbuster Purple Rain, and U2‘s 1988 Rattle and Hum, another one where the music is far superior to the film.

Of course, tribute movies to specific artists will also fall in this category (as well as the next), and there have been several standouts here, from Oliver Stone’s The Doors to the Johnny Cash bio Walk the Line to the bio on Ray Charles. There are hundreds more of these films, television series, and documentaries.

A unique type of these are those films that feature fictional bands but still produce interesting music. Prominent among this category are Eddie and the Cruisers from the 1980s and Tom Hanks’ That Thing You Do! from the 1990s, both of which focus on the early to mid 1960s era.

Soundtracks of Music from the Distant Past

Almost Famous, 2000Along with some of those mentioned above, there have also been some great movie soundtracks that include past music using various artists, usually due to the story itself being set sometime in the past. The best of these include Goodfellas, Forrest Gump, and Almost Famous. The latter is a film by Cameron Crowe and it profiles his own start as a rock journalist while he was still a teenager. In Crowe’s later life writing screenplays for films, music plays a strong role and the soundtracks are all all interesting. Other Crowe movies include 1989’s Say Anything, Singles, Jerry Maguire, and his 1982 debut film Fast Times at Ridgemont High, which brings us back to the focus of this article.

Fast Times at Ridgemont High soundtrack, 1982Several of the movie’s songs became hit singles, including Jackson Browne‘s “Somebody’s Baby”, which reached #7 on the Billboard chart. But the excellence of this album lies in the number of great songs by top-notch artists which (a the time) were not available anywhere else. Despite the comedic genre of the film and its suggestive title, many of these songs are great ballads such as “Love Rules” by Don Henley, “Love Is the Reason” by Graham Nash, and “Sleeping Angel” by Stevie Nicks. Other standouts were the title track by Sammy Hagar, “I Don’t Know (Spicoli’s Theme)” by Jimmy Buffett, “So Much in Love” by Timothy B. Schmit, “Never Surrender” by Don Felder, and “Waffle Stomp” by Joe Walsh (for those of you keeping score, that is four of the five members of The Eagles when they broke up a year earlier).

As this movie was oozing with rock n roll, several songs in the film itself, were not even included on the soundtrack. These include “We Got the Beat” by The Go Go’s, “Moving in Stereo” by The Cars, “American Girl” by Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers, and Zeppelin’s “Kashmir”, which plays after dialogue about “the second side of Zeppelin 4” (which does not include “Kashmir”). There is further dialogue in the film that talked about Pat Benatar, Cheap Trick, Earth Wind & Fire, and Debbie Harry of Blondie and, during the school dance scene, the band plays covers of “Life in the Fast Lane” and “Wooly Bully”. There may never again be movie which is not primarily about music, that contains so much great music.

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Ric Albano

The Pretender by Jackson Browne

The Pretender by Jackson Browne

Buy The Pretender

The Pretender by Jackson BrowneWritten the the wake of a personal tragedy, The Pretender, by Jackson Browne brings the listener on a subtle journey. It begins by exploring the heavy burdens and trials of life from which you must fight your way through to the elusive goal and the ultimate reward – happiness. The whole thing is obviously written by someone in the midst of great despair, but the overall theme is that things will somehow work out despite all the darkness and pain. A thought that somewhere along the line you’ll be rewarded for simply doing the right thing as long as you keep plugging along is a general theme of the album.

The Pretender was written and released months after the suicide of Browne’s first wife, Phyllis Major. Browne was left with their two-year-old son. Finding one’s way through darkness and heartbreak in life is the universal theme that gives this collection its staying power. While Browne had intentionally explored many dark issues on his first three albums in the early seventies, on this fourth album he seems to be desperately crawling in opposite directions by trying to make sense of it all and understand the larger picture.

Browne continues to use his signature style of Southern California piano-folk, there are many subtle intrusions that seep into these (largely) unassuming ballads. He plays on sonic dynamics from very simple melodies to much richer musical arrangements backing up a very specific type of poetic philosophy.

CRR logo
The Pretender by Jackson Browne
Released: November, 1976 (Asylum)
Produced by: John Landau & Jackson Browne
Recorded: The Sound Factory, Hollywood, CA, 1976
Side One Side Two
The Fuse
Your Bright Baby Blues
Linda Paloma
Here Come Those Tears Again
The Only Child
Daddy’s Tune
Sleep’s Dark and Silent Gate
The Pretender
Primary Musicians
Jackson Browne – Lead Vocals, Piano, Keyboards, Acoustic Guitars
Fred Tackett – Acoustic & Electric Guitars
Billy Payne – Piano, Organ
Leland Sklar – Bass
Jeff Porcaro – Drums

The album commences with “The Fuse”, a strong yet confusing song which may be interpreted in different ways by different people. It may mean the fuse that leads to the ultimate destruction or it may simply mean light the fuse to happiness and you are what you choose to be. The music consists of choppy little piano note riffs with nice lead guitar overtones by David Lindley. “Your Bright Baby Blues” is a more measured, standard song with dynamic vocals by Browne and another nice guitar lead, this time by Lowell George, with lyrics that speak of a temporary fix but persistent issues;

“No matter how fast I run, I can’t run away from me…”

The Pretender contains a few tracks with cross-genre and diverse sounds. “Linda Paloma” has an interesting Mexican sound with a harp by Arthur Gerst and Roberto Guiterrez on guitaron. However, this song does tend to drone after a while. “Sleep’s Dark and Silent Gate” is a more succinct ballad with thick strings backing the core piano, bass, and acoustic guitar and speaks of a sudden awakening after years of sleepwalking through life, apparently a direct reference to his wife’s suicide.

“Here Come Those Tears Again” was co-written by Browne’s Mother-in-law Nancy Farnsworth. Although it is probably the closest to a “pop hit” on the album, it is very poetic in its approach with a strong musical arrangement and well blended guitar and piano. “The Only Child” apparently speaks of Browne’s son and is another “journey” kind of song with a fiddle by David Lindley throughout. “Daddy’s Tune” starts as a basic ballad with some very good piano that later breaks into a highly enjoyable, upbeat, horn section.

The closing title song is the best song on the album as well as the theme which ties it all together. It is a multi-part, lyric rich, mini suite, which is basically poetry set to music. It speaks of getting lost in the details while losing sight of the big picture, starting young and strong but ending up living the life of a “happy idiot” with “paint by number dreams”. Browne began recording “The Pretender” in the late winter of 1975, after first joining up with rock critic and producer Jon Landau. A few weeks into the song’s development, Browne’s wife committed suicide, changing the perspective completely.

Still, the song and album ends with a tinge of hope;

Are you there? Say a prayer for the pretender /
Who started out so young and strong only to surrender…”

The last lines of the song are a call to wake up and start realizing your dreams before it’s too late – time marches and what you choose to do with your time is up to you – don’t let it pass you by or you will be the Pretender.

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1976 Images

Part of Classic Rock Review’s celebration of 1976 albums.