Sometime in the late seventies a beautiful singer out of Florida called Paula Moore released two equally beautiful albums with compositions by herself and guitarist Larry Rubin. Not sure about you out there, but when I see covers like the above I get plenty excited on the hope we are dealing with DIY, private-pressed earnest and naive songwriting from the true glory days of the US of A. Which are not right now or in the near future, in my opinion. And that's exactly what we get here.
In the discogs database she appears as
Paula Moore 2 and
Paula Moore 3, and indeed it was confusing to me whether or not it was the same artist, despite my wife's protestations that the face was the same on both covers, I didn't quite believe her, to her eventual anger, but scanning the backs of the records clarified the matter fully as Rubin appears on both. Hopefully the
powers that be on that site will correct that misclassification without too much comlaint or undue delay. (The lazy idiot who entered the Paula Moore 2 album also didn't bother to include side 2 's songs. Amazing how when I make even the smallest punctuation error on that site for a new entry I get angry comments from the guys-- the 'basement dwellers' as my wife always calls them-- and obviously, there are no females in that group, who are charged with checking the database info.)
On this first album of two, confusingly, ST-- at least I am assuming it is chronologically prior, based on the fact it is slightly less sophisticated in production, though there's no way to know-- we hear her melancholy and well-thought craftsmanship perfectly turned out, as in a track called
Thursday's Mood, composed by herself:
Gives you a nice idea of why I love this LP so much. Overall, very close in spirit to
Rosemarie Taylor from just recently. Classic Americana from the 70s like those collectible ceramic animals they used to give away at (full-serve!) gas stations for free. Anyone out there remember those? Even for me it's the faintest of early childhood memories.
Some tracks are by Larry, most by Moore.
Moving on to the
second album, the penultimate song
Sad Song Spinster must have seemed like such a clever pun, about a middle aged (?) man listening to his vinyl collection alone in a basement, maybe it was even created de novo from the idea of combining the two ideas into one concept...
or is it just plain silly?
Well there's one thing I do know, the song is outrageously beautiful, with the lead guitar playing such delicate arabesques around the melody and rhythm:
Listening to this again, I'm stunned by the contrast between the sheer beauty of the music and the awkwardness of the lyrics. But maybe I should throw it out there, how many reading this including myself are similar to the man as described, with a
"six-pack by his side," "spinning songs and singing along as if from the bottom of his heart?"
My one complaint would be the brevity of both albums, and perhaps, more trivially, the descents into bluegrass that sometimes overtake the band in moments of weakness...
Please, if anyone knows anything about her, let us know in the comments section...
