Lyons and Howell from 197?, US

A poor rip of this wonderful unknown songwriter album was circulating for some time.  I bought the vinyl to record it better.  What was astonishing to me is that the gentleman on the cover, Rich Lyons, wrote almost all the music here-- some tracks have the gorgeous Phyllis Howell as cocreditor.  Unfortunately there is no year for the release, but I presume from the smoothness of the production that we are dealing with an era circa 1978.

The blurb on the back from the artists:

We have endeavored here to achieve a variety of music and lyrical styles. Our intention:  To depart from categorization and lean towards more versatility within a single album.  Utilizing different accompaniment in various songs and drawing on different stylistic backgrnds in their composition, we hope to have made each song separate from the others and a statement within itself...

How many times have we heard a similar thought expressed in these posts-- regarding being different and varied?

The first track called Moon Beams is absolute magic:






The arrangements, by Lyons as well, are simply stunning.  It seems to me almost a crime that music this well-written is ignored by everyone when it should have been a hit back then, and could still be today, as a replacement for the endless parade of stupid 70s songs played as background to our lives-- if Elton John it's always Candle in the Wind, if Eagles, always Hotel California, etc., songs we got sick of hearing already before puberty many years ago but which we can never escape in the popular sphere anywhere we travel to outside our homes...