So Close, So Very Far to Go

Chronique

If this is not the very definition of an album that lives up to the worst stereotypes of the sensitive early-1970s singer/songwriter, it must be damned close. There were some major talents playing on the Nashville sessions for this LP, including keyboardist David Briggs and bassist Norbert Putnam (both top Muscle Shoals session guys), and top Nashville drummer Kenneth Buttrey. You can't do much with awkward, melodically unmemorable, overly sentimental songs, though. And it's made worse when the arrangements are usually overblown orchestrated MOR, with occasional hints of country and jazz when the string and horn arrangements take a breather. Holmes' writing was prone to mawkish love songs, and his departures into social consciousness -- the bleak inner city landscape of "We're All We've Got" and worries about overcrowding in "Population" -- are simplistic, even grimace-inducing. Polydor was certainly being patient with Holmes -- it was his second album for the major label in two years, and his fourth overall since 1967. Given that decades later, it was still hard to find many people who'd ever heard of him, you'd have to suspect that at this point Polydor might have been using Holmes as a tax write off, or just fulfilling an ill-advised contract.
© Richie Unterberger /TiVo