Don Glass

To the outside observer, Looking Glass were one of the luckiest bands to come up during the early '70s – and doubly so, coming out of New Jersey in 1972 with a number one hit, three years before anyone was thinking about Bruce Springsteen & the E Street Band, and getting radio play on the song that has carried over into the oldies and '70s nostalgia boom over the decades since. Ironically, the bandmembers were never entirely happy with either the hit or the nature of the success that it brought them, mostly because it didn't represent what Looking Glass actually sounded like.

This double disc CD brings together two versions of The Misunderstood – the classic 60’s psychedelic band (their immortal tracks being found on the CD ‘Before The Dream Faded’ which was nicely reviewed by the Seth Man). Disc 1 entitled ‘The Legendary Gold Star Album’ presents the bluesy songs the band recorded in California in 1966 under the production of the late great John Peel who discovered the band while he was over in the USA. The collection is well presented and is reminiscent of the tracks presented after the classic six psychedelic songs on ‘Before The Dream Faded’, but they have a slightly clearer sound here as they’re taken from an acetate and the quality partialy 'restored'. Rick Brown’s voice is excellent on these tracks, sounding not unlike a cross between Jim and Van Morrison, he eases through classic blues tracks ‘You Don’t Have to Go Out’ and ‘Who’s Been Talkin’ (tracks which appear on ‘Before the Dream Faded’).

In May 2006, Leonard Cohen published his first collection of poetry in 22 years, Book of Longing, having previously used some of the material as songs on his most recent albums, Ten New Songs (2001) and Dear Heather (2004). The book touched on many of the themes he had explored throughout his writing career, including spirituality (he had spent part of his time between books as a postulant at a Buddhist monastery), eroticism, and self-deprecating humor. On June 1, 2007, at the Luminato Festival in Toronto, Ontario, composer Philip Glass premiered his song cycle based on Book of Longing, which is here given a two-CD recording. Cohen is present on the album speaking (not singing) some of his poems, and Glass also has set some of them to music, with singing by a soprano (Dominique Plaisant), a mezzo-soprano (Tara Hugo), a tenor (Will Erat), and a bass-baritone (Daniel Keeling).