David Batteau and Batteaux [flac limited time only]

 

The reason I came across this unknown artist is because I was looking up the composer of (Love will come) Someday by David Sanborn, a lovely song no matter how you slice it.  It first appeared on his 1982 album As We Speak, and got covered a lot later on by other artists of course, as well it should be.  Vocals were by Michael Sembello who presumably wrote the lyrics, with this blog post's David Batteau.

Anyways more than 10 years prior these two brothers, David and Robin from Boston, put out an album with the awkward name of Batteaux (the French plural).  It's soft rock or ssw, exactly of the type you'd expect from the year 1973, probably most similar to the early Hudson Bros albums I talked about back here.  Nonetheless, or therefore, there are some good songs in there.

The 2nd track with the awkward title of Living's Worth Loving, shows a little of the America (the band) influence that was quite universal in the early 1970s:

But overall the songwriting has a lot of depth and variety, similar also maybe to my beloved Seals and Croft, discussed here.  Thereafter, David Batteau went solo for the 1976 Happy in Hollywood, which obviously shows progress, or others might say descent, into the more commercial 1970s ssw style, with lush arrangements, 3 or 4-part harmonies, etc.  Note the surprisingly philosophical-scientific lyrics of Dancing on Atoms (presumably something referencing transcendental meditation or the like):