Michael Martin Murphey
Swans Against The Sun

From the successor of "Blue Sky - Night Thunder" nothing else could be expected; Michael Martin Murphey is definitely not a shooting star; his creativity certainly did not reach its peak within the scope of just one record, and thus, despite his "notoriety" (unfortunately, very, very relative) being mainly due to "Wildfire" and "Carolina In The Pines" contained in the wonderful 1975 album, the following year MMM was already ready to respond, unveiling a new example of inspiration, personality, and style, evident right from the cover: "Swans Against The Sun", produced like the previous albums by Bob Johnston, already alongside Bob Dylan, Leonard Cohen and Simon & Garfunkel among others.

"Blue Sky - Night Thunder" was a very "visual" album, with an extroverted, versatile, and descriptive character, qualities also inherent in "Swans Against The Sun", but often reworked in a much more intimate and reflective key, with some vivid strokes of country-rock providing a counterbalance, adding verve and liveliness to this album, nonetheless dominated by soft colors. This new journey into Mr. Murphey's old west is opened by the title track, "Swans Against The Sun", a melancholy and delicately orchestrated ballad, with a vague neoclassical flavor and ennobled by a perfect vocal performance and an impeccable melody, imbued with a strong contemplative spirit right from the lyrics inspired by some ancient Chinese poets; "Pink Lady" is a slow and decadent flamenco dominated by lazy guitar phrases that outline a troubled portrait of a woman, sharing the Latin sounds and the soft sunset atmospheres over the Grand Canyon with the rhythmic and hypnotic "Natural Bridges" and the ethereal "Season Change", two stunning landscape frescoes translated into music placed at the closure of the album, while in a dimension more tied to time than space are the nuanced "Temple Of The Sun", almost a subdued lullaby telling the destruction of the Aztec people, narrated from the perspective of the defeated with delicate tones, of unknowing and inevitable resignation, and the ballad "Buffalo Gun", an intense and poignant evocation of the Wild West epic, a myth already largely faded by 1976, the year the album was released, and enriched by a beautiful guitar solo.

For every medal there's a flip side, and the flip side of "Buffalo Gun" is undoubtedly "The Wild West Show", a raw honky-tonk rather dry and rough in approach, where the famous paracircus show devised by Willam "Buffalo Bill" Cody is faithfully depicted and "mocked" between the lines; other "brilliant" episodes of the album are undoubtedly the pressing "Dancing In The Meadow", a funny ghost story with a quasi-creepy atmosphere dominated by fiddles and rattling steel guitars, and the long and epic "Renegade", the most distinctly rock episode of "Swans Against The Sun": here, bass and guitar are absolute protagonists and the voice may not be particularly effective being not endowed with the right timbre and approach, but the song itself works wonderfully, unfolding for more than six minutes among a decisive and pressing melody, between riffs and small instrumental escapes, to an epic finale with exquisitely cinematic atmosphere.

As further proof of the great esteem this Texan songwriter has always enjoyed and his status as a cult artist, the already rich and exquisite menu of "Swans Against The Sun" is embellished by a couple of exceptional duets: the delicate and melancholic "A Mansion On The Hill", a cover of Hank Williams with John Denver as the countervoice, and the short and snappy outlaw country anthem "Rhythm Of The Road", the simplest and most immediate episode of the album in which MMM shares the stage with the more celebrated colleague Willie Nelson. These two prestigious guests are also present, in a more discreet role, in the title track (Denver) and in "Renegade" (Nelson), adding further historical value as well as providing excellent musical support to this wonderful album, which is perhaps the pinnacle of Murphey's production, thanks to a more cohesive and harmonious overall vision compared to its predecessor "Blue Sky - Night Thunder", and this suffices to include it among the many, too many unjustly ignored masterpieces.