Earl's Closet: The Lost Archive of Earl Mcgrath, 1970-1980

Album review

An album that starts out with a cut by a duo with a prototypical moniker like "Delbert & Glen" likely isn't too promising on its face. However, when that cut is a demo version of "Two More Bottles of Wine," recorded a few years before Emmylou Harris made it a country classic, and the "Delbert" in question is Delbert McClinton (the "Glen" is fellow Texan Glen Clark; the two released two solid, if unremarkable, albums in the early '70s) well, maybe you've got something special on your hands.  The "Earl" here is Earl McGrath, a consummate '70s bon vivant, a man who could claim Harrison Ford as his one-time pot dealer and Mick Jagger as the rock star who trusted him to run the Rolling Stones' record label. (Rolling Stones Records was, interestingly enough, the second label McGrath would run; the other was Clean Records, which had Atlantic's Ahmet Ertegun as a patron and Delbert & Glen as one of its few acts.) Needless to say, he was definitely the kind of guy who was the recipient of all kinds of demo tapes, and some of the ones he had stashed in his closet (yes, his actual closet) comprise this excellent 22-track collection, which gives a highly personal but exceptionally prismatic look at '70s rock culture. McGrath would split his time between the coasts—as befitting a party aficionado such as himself—but this compilation leans much more heavily into the vibes of mid-'70s LA. Not only are there songs that are on-the-nose with their geographic affinities ("Gonna California," "California") but also those that explicitly reference the Golden State ("Dixie Darling," "Killer"). Of these, the best may be "Killer," by the unimaginatively named duo Country (also signed to McGrath's Clean label—clearly his eye for marketing was not matched by his eye for talent); the track manages to evoke both Neil Young-style cynical weariness and soft-rock gentility á la America. But this set is not all LA chill: a hilariously rickety take on "Funky But Chic" by David Johansen is a bit of a shambolic palate cleanser, and the Jim Carroll Band's "Tension" provides a pretty clear contrast between what was going on in downtown NYC and what was happening in Hollywood at the same time. Any compilation that can feature unheard Daryl Hall & John Oates tracks alongside rough-and-ready tracks by Terry Allen—and still make conceptual and stylistic sense—is a truly special album indeed. © Jason Ferguson/Qobuz