BOB LIND
''FINDING YOU AGAIN''
OCTOBER 5 2012
54:03
1. How Dare You Love Me/3:48
2. Maybe It's The Rain/3:33
3. Exeter (The Wedding Waltz)/4:51
4. Finding You Again/4:37
5. Somebody's Angel/Peter Allen, David Lasley/4:33
6. The Thunder Of Goodbye/3:26
7. The Gravity Of The World/3:42
8. Somewhere In This City/4:41
9. How the Nights Can Fly/4:21
10. May/2:39
11. Someone to Adore/4:30
12. Let It Go/3:52
13. Perspective/5:30
Tracks By Lind, Except 5
David Floyd /Organ, Piano
Jamie Hoover /Arranger, Instrumentation, Producer, Vocals, Vocals (Background)
Bob Lind /Guitar (Acoustic), Guitar (Rhythm), Harmonica, Piano, Vocals
Steve Stoeckel /Ukulele
REVIEW
by Mark Deming
Forty-one years after releasing his last solo album, and forty-six years after "Elusive Butterfly" briefly made him a star, Bob Lind has unexpectedly returned with a new album, and the liner notes include an essay from the reclusive singer/songwriter titled "I Hate Recording!" Well, that gives some idea as to why he's been avoiding the studio these past few decades (and his notes discuss his philosophical objections to recording in detail), but if it seems curious that all it took was a long-distance collaboration with Jamie Hoover of the Spongetones to change Lind's mind about making an album, that does appear to be the genesis of Finding You Again, Lind's surprise comeback. More than four decades after his retreat from the spotlight, Lind's music sounds at once fresh and familiar -- the lyrics have the same elliptical, poetic bent as his work of the '60s, and most of the time they're just as pleasantly cryptic as you recall, but the melodies and arrangements suggest Lind has been making a real effort to keep up with the times. If the results sometimes sound like an oddball fusion of '70s soft rock and benign new age meandering, at the very least, you can't say he's trying to mimic the folk-rock of his best-known work. By Lind's admission, some of these tracks were simply demos dressed up with overdubs by Hoover, while others were more carefully constructed from the ground up by the two collaborators; this may be the reason Lind sounds noticeably more ragged on some tunes than others, though his voice is in fine shape throughout, and even the more chaotic moments show Lind still has some fire in the belly and a desire to express himself. And Lind did indeed find a sympathetic partner in Hoover, who gives this music an accompaniment that's tasteful, evocative, and well-crafted. Nothing on Finding You Again sounds like a lost classic (and as good as Hoover is, he's no Jack Nitzsche), but for a guy who hasn't made an album since Richard Nixon was president, Bob Lind doesn't sound the least bit rusty on this album, and even appears to have learned a few things during his downtime.
BIOGRAPHY
by Mark Deming
Bob Lind has enjoyed a sizable cult following based on a rather small body of work; he released just four albums between 1966 and 1971 (one a collection of demos never intended for commercial release), and landed just one single in the Top 40, but he's acknowledged as one of the key artists in the '60s folk-rock boom, and over 200 different artists have recorded his songs. Robert Neale Lind was born in Baltimore, Maryland on November 25, 1944. His family moved a great deal when he was young, but as a teenager he settled in Denver, Colorado, and began singing rock & roll and rhythm & blues when he was in eighth grade. In high school, Lind formed a band called the Moonlighters, and while attending Western State University in Gunnison, Colorado, he led a rock group, Bob Lind & the Misfits, specializing in early rock covers. As a new breed of songwriters emerged on the folk music scene in the early '60s, Lind took up songwriting and started playing occasional shows at local coffee houses. He relocated to San Francisco, where he continued writing songs and playing small venues, and in 1965, he headed south to Los Angeles, where he scored an audition with World Pacific Records, a subsidiary of Liberty Records. World Pacific signed Lind to a record contract, and after he landed a publishing deal with Metric Music, he was introduced to producer and arranger Jack Nitzsche, who liked Lind's songs and agreed to work with him. With Nitzsche providing artful backdrops for Lind's emotionally literate songs, the two proved to be an inspired pairing in the studio, and World Pacific had high hopes for Lind's first single, "Cheryl's Goin' Home." However, several disc jockeys began playing the flipside, "Elusive Butterfly," and the song rose to number five on the Billboard Singles charts in 1966.
Lind's debut album, Don't Be Concerned, was released shortly afterwards, which also featured "Elusive Butterfly"'s follow-up, "Remember the Rain" b/w "Truly Julie's Blues," which peaked at number 65 in the United States. A second album, Photographs of Feeling, also produced by Nitzsche, was released by World Pacific by the end of the year, while Verve-Folkways issued an album called The Elusive Bob Lind, which featured early unreleased demos overdubbed with new accompaniment without Lind's input. By Lind's own admission, he developed a powerful taste for alcohol and drugs once "Elusive Butterfly" made him a celebrity, and he became angry and difficult to work with; he severed ties with Nitzsche, and was dropped by World Pacific after a pair of unsuccessful singles. He briefly retired from music and moved to New Mexico, but recorded a new album in 1971 at the behest of Doug Weston, who ran the successful Los Angeles music club The Troubadour. 1971's Since There Were Circles was an accomplished set of folk-infused country-rock, but Capitol Records put little promotional effort behind it, and after it tanked in the marketplace, Lind once again turned his back on the music business.
Lind moved to Florida, gave up drinking and drugs, and began working as a writer, penning novels and screenplays while also contributing to the surreal tabloid the Weekly World News. Meanwhile, other artists continued to cover his songs, and his small body of work earned a following both in America and abroad; Jarvis Cocker paid homage to Lind in the song "Bob Lind (The Only Way Is Down)" on Pulp's 2001 album We Love Life, and Richard Hawley has cited Lind as a influence. Lind continued to write songs during his time away from the spotlight, and in 2004, he booked a small show at the Luna Star Café in North Miami. The show was well received, and Lind was soon invited by his longtime friend Arlo Guthrie to perform at the Guthrie Center in Great Barrington, Massachusetts. Since then, Lind has resumed regular touring, playing clubs in the United States, and theaters and festivals in United Kingdom, while the majority of his back catalog has been reissued on CD. In 2006, Lind released a limited-edition live album from one of his periodic Miami shows, Live at the Luna Star Café, and after collaborating on new recordings with Jamie Hoover of the Spongetones, Lind released a fresh studio album, Finding You Again, in 2012.
''FINDING YOU AGAIN''
OCTOBER 5 2012
54:03
1. How Dare You Love Me/3:48
2. Maybe It's The Rain/3:33
3. Exeter (The Wedding Waltz)/4:51
4. Finding You Again/4:37
5. Somebody's Angel/Peter Allen, David Lasley/4:33
6. The Thunder Of Goodbye/3:26
7. The Gravity Of The World/3:42
8. Somewhere In This City/4:41
9. How the Nights Can Fly/4:21
10. May/2:39
11. Someone to Adore/4:30
12. Let It Go/3:52
13. Perspective/5:30
Tracks By Lind, Except 5
David Floyd /Organ, Piano
Jamie Hoover /Arranger, Instrumentation, Producer, Vocals, Vocals (Background)
Bob Lind /Guitar (Acoustic), Guitar (Rhythm), Harmonica, Piano, Vocals
Steve Stoeckel /Ukulele
REVIEW
by Mark Deming
Forty-one years after releasing his last solo album, and forty-six years after "Elusive Butterfly" briefly made him a star, Bob Lind has unexpectedly returned with a new album, and the liner notes include an essay from the reclusive singer/songwriter titled "I Hate Recording!" Well, that gives some idea as to why he's been avoiding the studio these past few decades (and his notes discuss his philosophical objections to recording in detail), but if it seems curious that all it took was a long-distance collaboration with Jamie Hoover of the Spongetones to change Lind's mind about making an album, that does appear to be the genesis of Finding You Again, Lind's surprise comeback. More than four decades after his retreat from the spotlight, Lind's music sounds at once fresh and familiar -- the lyrics have the same elliptical, poetic bent as his work of the '60s, and most of the time they're just as pleasantly cryptic as you recall, but the melodies and arrangements suggest Lind has been making a real effort to keep up with the times. If the results sometimes sound like an oddball fusion of '70s soft rock and benign new age meandering, at the very least, you can't say he's trying to mimic the folk-rock of his best-known work. By Lind's admission, some of these tracks were simply demos dressed up with overdubs by Hoover, while others were more carefully constructed from the ground up by the two collaborators; this may be the reason Lind sounds noticeably more ragged on some tunes than others, though his voice is in fine shape throughout, and even the more chaotic moments show Lind still has some fire in the belly and a desire to express himself. And Lind did indeed find a sympathetic partner in Hoover, who gives this music an accompaniment that's tasteful, evocative, and well-crafted. Nothing on Finding You Again sounds like a lost classic (and as good as Hoover is, he's no Jack Nitzsche), but for a guy who hasn't made an album since Richard Nixon was president, Bob Lind doesn't sound the least bit rusty on this album, and even appears to have learned a few things during his downtime.
BIOGRAPHY
by Mark Deming
Bob Lind has enjoyed a sizable cult following based on a rather small body of work; he released just four albums between 1966 and 1971 (one a collection of demos never intended for commercial release), and landed just one single in the Top 40, but he's acknowledged as one of the key artists in the '60s folk-rock boom, and over 200 different artists have recorded his songs. Robert Neale Lind was born in Baltimore, Maryland on November 25, 1944. His family moved a great deal when he was young, but as a teenager he settled in Denver, Colorado, and began singing rock & roll and rhythm & blues when he was in eighth grade. In high school, Lind formed a band called the Moonlighters, and while attending Western State University in Gunnison, Colorado, he led a rock group, Bob Lind & the Misfits, specializing in early rock covers. As a new breed of songwriters emerged on the folk music scene in the early '60s, Lind took up songwriting and started playing occasional shows at local coffee houses. He relocated to San Francisco, where he continued writing songs and playing small venues, and in 1965, he headed south to Los Angeles, where he scored an audition with World Pacific Records, a subsidiary of Liberty Records. World Pacific signed Lind to a record contract, and after he landed a publishing deal with Metric Music, he was introduced to producer and arranger Jack Nitzsche, who liked Lind's songs and agreed to work with him. With Nitzsche providing artful backdrops for Lind's emotionally literate songs, the two proved to be an inspired pairing in the studio, and World Pacific had high hopes for Lind's first single, "Cheryl's Goin' Home." However, several disc jockeys began playing the flipside, "Elusive Butterfly," and the song rose to number five on the Billboard Singles charts in 1966.
Lind's debut album, Don't Be Concerned, was released shortly afterwards, which also featured "Elusive Butterfly"'s follow-up, "Remember the Rain" b/w "Truly Julie's Blues," which peaked at number 65 in the United States. A second album, Photographs of Feeling, also produced by Nitzsche, was released by World Pacific by the end of the year, while Verve-Folkways issued an album called The Elusive Bob Lind, which featured early unreleased demos overdubbed with new accompaniment without Lind's input. By Lind's own admission, he developed a powerful taste for alcohol and drugs once "Elusive Butterfly" made him a celebrity, and he became angry and difficult to work with; he severed ties with Nitzsche, and was dropped by World Pacific after a pair of unsuccessful singles. He briefly retired from music and moved to New Mexico, but recorded a new album in 1971 at the behest of Doug Weston, who ran the successful Los Angeles music club The Troubadour. 1971's Since There Were Circles was an accomplished set of folk-infused country-rock, but Capitol Records put little promotional effort behind it, and after it tanked in the marketplace, Lind once again turned his back on the music business.
Lind moved to Florida, gave up drinking and drugs, and began working as a writer, penning novels and screenplays while also contributing to the surreal tabloid the Weekly World News. Meanwhile, other artists continued to cover his songs, and his small body of work earned a following both in America and abroad; Jarvis Cocker paid homage to Lind in the song "Bob Lind (The Only Way Is Down)" on Pulp's 2001 album We Love Life, and Richard Hawley has cited Lind as a influence. Lind continued to write songs during his time away from the spotlight, and in 2004, he booked a small show at the Luna Star Café in North Miami. The show was well received, and Lind was soon invited by his longtime friend Arlo Guthrie to perform at the Guthrie Center in Great Barrington, Massachusetts. Since then, Lind has resumed regular touring, playing clubs in the United States, and theaters and festivals in United Kingdom, while the majority of his back catalog has been reissued on CD. In 2006, Lind released a limited-edition live album from one of his periodic Miami shows, Live at the Luna Star Café, and after collaborating on new recordings with Jamie Hoover of the Spongetones, Lind released a fresh studio album, Finding You Again, in 2012.
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