Moonlight Radio - The On-Line Jukeboxes
Twelve Little Bunnies: Bunny Number 1
Close
TITLE:
TRACK:
LABEL:
FORMAT:
Two more albums, City of Gold and Beautiful Lies You Could Live In, followed in 1971; moving to Blue Thumb, Rapp resurfaced as a solo artist with 1972's Stardancer, but upon the release of Sunforest a year later he then retired from music, subsequently becoming a civil rights attorney. Frequently cited as a key influence by the likes of Damon & Naomi, the Bevis Frond and the Japanese psych band Ghost, Rapp made an unexpected return to live performance in mid-1998 when he appeared at the Terrastock festival in Providence, RI, joining son Dave and his indie-pop band Shy Camp.He soon began work on 1999's A Journal of the Plague Year, his first new LP in over two decades. Constructive Melancholy, a retrospective of Pearls Before Swine's tenure on Reprise, also appeared that same year. This sparked renewed interest in the band, with Water music releasing a box set of the Reprise material in 2003 (Jewels Were the Stars) as well as a set of unreleased demo and live recordings entitled he Wizard of Is. ESP also remastered and combined their first two albums as The Complete ESP-Disk Recordings in 2005.
For their second Reprise Records outing, Pearls Before Swine worked primarily with Nashville-based musicians, including a small orchestra who provide a stately feel to the highly intimate nature of the material. According to Tom Rapp's comments in the liner booklet accompanying the Jewels Were the Stars (2003) box , the songs were written while he and his wife were living in the Netherlands, which Rapp said contributed significantly to the air of romanticism throughout. 'Jeweller' opens the album with an exquisite tale that exemplifies Rapp's remarkable abilities to draw upon disparate metaphors such as shining coins and worshiping God, both involving the Use of Ashes -- hence the title. The rural mood created by the notable Music City USA stalwarts effortlessly fuses with David Briggs' baroque-flavored harpsichord on the delicate 'From the Movie of the Same Name,' featuring Rapp and spouse Elisabeth on non-verbal vocalizations as they 'da-da-da' the melody. Although 'Rocket Man' predates the Elton John cut by a couple of years, Bernie Taupin cites it as his inspiration for the lyrics behind John's 1972 Top Ten hit. The words are credited as having been influenced by a Ray Bradbury novella that dealt with the universal emotion of loss. Again, Briggs' keyboard runs relate the story with subdued refinement. By contrast, 'God Save the Child' is one of the more amplified inclusions, making good use of session heavies Kenneth A. Buttrey (drums) and Charlie McCoy (guitar), especially when placed against the restrained string section. Another sonic texture in the tapestry is the jazzy 'Tell Me Why,' shimmering with an uncredited vibraphone lead gliding beneath Rapp's whimsical lines. These tracks are offset by the noir 'When the War Began,' the ethereal love song 'Margery,' and the mid-tempo retelling of the 'Riegal,' a ship whose 4,000 inhabitants perished during World War II. Rapp's juxtaposition of stark imagery reveals that while Pearls Before Swine might not have continued the bombastic direction set about on their earlier protest works 'Uncle John' or 'Drop Out,' they maintained social and political relevance. In 2003 Use of Ashes (1970) was issued on compact disc as part of the aforementioned Jewels Were the Stars compendium, anthologizing the band's Reprise Records output.