Evening of the Magician by Randy Burns (Vinyl record album review)

Album name: Evening of the Magician

Artist name: Randy Burns

Year: 1968

Number of discs: one

Label: ESP-Disk

Collection: Brenner / Gessner

Who owned it: my father

Buy it on Amazon: $120.00

My review

Level of familiarity before listening

I’ve never listened to this record before, but it will be the fourth by Randy Burns that I’ve reviewed. The previous three were:

Of Love and War (1966): 3/5

Song For An Uncertain Lady (1970): 3/5

Randy Burns and the Sky Dog Band (1971): 3/5

What I expected

Folk rock.

What it was actually like

This was, like his other records, folk rock.

Some of the songs, like Evening Magician, were pretty simple and stripped down, with not a lot of instrumentation.

Others had a more layered and complex sound. Ron’s Song was more upbeat than the rest, and had more of a country rock sound, with a second vocal part, and Rainy Day Children also had a more intricate sound, with harmonica.

Echoes of Mary’s Song used a flute very extensively, but it added very little. My flute test, from my review of Loggins and Messina (1972) goes like this:

I’m maybe slightly more forgiving of flute being used in rock music [than the saxophone], if only because it’s so uncommon, but there’s a simple standard that I would apply: are you Jethro Tull? Are you better than Jethro Tull, or engaged in a serious attempt to do something that Jethro Tull hasn’t done or can’t do? If you answer no to all of those questions, then you probably should leave the flute out of your rock song.

Springtime Song also had the flute, but it was not as distracting[1].

Much of this record was totally fine, but a bit mumbly, and it was not always easy to follow what Burns was singing, so I thought it was apt that he included this on the back of the album:

(ESPERANTO) Mendu tiun diskon ĉe via loka diskvendejo aǔ rekte de ESP. Eksterlanda prezo: $4.98. Pagu per internacia poŝtmandato.

I could totally see him as an Esperanto nerd.

Grade

3/5: interesting, but not for me

References[+]

References

↑1 | Also, I did eventually review Aqualung (1971).