Mickey Newbury - I Came To Hear The Music (1974) Hi Res

Produced by Chip Young, I Came to Hear the Music is Newbury's most diverse recording from his early period. Along with the bittersweet love songs that defy categorization, there are bona fide country waltzes like "You Only Live Once in a While,," rock & roll songs such as "Dizzy Lizzy" and "1 X I Ain't 2," and some blues and gospel. The rain and thunderstorms are back, and there are appearances by the Jordanaires and Bobby Emmons. The lushly orchestrated "countrypolitan" sound of "Yesterday's Gone" and the folk-country "If You See Her" mark two ends of the acoustic spectrum for Newbury. The last half of the album features the most diversity; it begins and ends with the aforementioned rock tracks, and Newbury, with his killer guitar pickers and piano player, could rock with anybody. Traffic sounds open "Organized Noise," which could have been a vintage Neil Diamond track, with its African percussion and off-meter rhyme. It's full of drama, of bitter reverie, of remorse, and as the orchestra swells behind the singer and the cut begins to open itself up, it just abruptly ends...a squandered idea, an emotion best left unexplored. There is also the ballad "Love Look (At Us Now)," which was covered by no less than five different artists, none of them coming close to Newbury's bone honest, tell-it-like-it-is delivery. The song is full of shame and bewilderment, unable to resolve the emotions contained within it (with the strings swelling repeatedly to underscore this) or stand against them. An amazing tome that lasts less than three minutes! Alas, this album sold only as well as its predecessors, but it pointed its creator in new directions, or at least revealed the many simultaneous directions he'd been capable traveling all along.