Larry and Julie Coryell in The Lion and the Ram, 1976

I was well acquainted with him, obviously, but never bothered to 'complete the discography' because I had run into too much long improvisation, noodling jamming, and acoustic tediousness in earlier albums, with the exception of the fusion band Eleventh House which produced a wonderful exciting and electric discography in the seventies.  I would also have to mention his superb collaborations with the brilliant Alphonse Mouzon, whose discography is also worth completing.

Then I went back to listen to all his material from the period and was surprised to hear this album, which is quite uncharacteristic since it mixes vocal tracks, definitely a rarity on his releases, which I think are sung by him, with the lyrics written by his wife Julie above acoustic guitar strumming in the folk rock style.  And those songs are quite good, reminding me a lot of way back when Ralph Towner sang so achingly emotionally on the Paul Winter albums, if you remember this post and song from 5 years ago.  I don't think Larry's composition is quite at the same level (as Towner), I'm sorry to his fans who will be upset by this assessment, but they are really excellent here and there, and far past the average songwriting.

On this particular song called Short Time Around the descending chord pattern is quite trite (identical to New York State of Mind by Billy Joel) but the charm of his very plain singing (clearly he is not vocally trained), as well as the guitar textures after the bridge, make this really interesting:

If you continue on to the 3 minute mark very surprising dissonances show up too, which really threw me off the chair when I first heard this track.  I don't think anybody on commercial radio would have approved of the way the song takes us out!

In terms of his classical-style composition, check out the track called Domesticity:

This is at the same level as the 2 'ne plus ultras' I always compare every guitarist to here on this blog, specifically James Vincent and Don Mock.

What a joy to discover something so precious and 'rare,' (not released yet to CD??) that I never heard before.

Addendum

After writing this post, this album really grew on me. I take back any neg. comments about it, it's really wonderful and a masterpiece from beginning to end. What a shame it's not better known or appreciated out there, in the real world!