Seals & Crofts
I'll Play For You

THE REVIEW

The very religious Texans James Seals and Dash Crofts were a country rock duo, active and successful (across the Atlantic) throughout the seventies. This 1975 album is their seventh: Seals is the one with the goatee and flat cap, he composes most of the lyrics, plays the guitars, and sings with a very nasal voice, like a baritenor. Crofts is the mandolinist, composes the music together with his partner, and sings with a warm, baritone voice.

The album in question is delightful... indeed, it is expressly so for those who have the right enzymes to enjoy soft rock, folk, and the semi-acoustic or entirely acoustic atmospheres, perhaps overlooking the good-naturedness and intrusive religiosity that are anyway confined to the lyrics and thus have little to no impact for us Italians. The two know how to play, sing, and harmonize with each other very well; the musicians hired to accompany them are top-notch (for instance, David Paich and the Porcaro brothers who would later form Toto), and the production by Louie Shelton is sumptuous.

A flaw of the album is that it starts with the most bland episode, the one that titles the work and that at the time also entered the American charts as a single, but it seems to me sweetly antiquated. Things are already better with the second piece "Golden Raimbow", played on the soft carpet of electric piano and the tasty jazzy counterpoints of the guitar, in the producer's hands.

The work takes off with the third track "Castles In The Sand": the intricate twelve-string guitar and mandola are precious and silvery, recorded and mixed with exquisite class. The verses move in an unusual yet impeccable seven-eight meter and resolve in a three-quarter waltz-time chorus, all with a taste and roundness that perfectly preserve the accessibility and musicality of the whole, further bolstered by the consummate ability of the two main artistes to harmonize with their voices.

"Blue Bonnet Nation" is also beautiful, a mellow and compact rock that displays the more rhythmic and vaguely bluesy side of their inspiration. It is still the arrangement and execution, in very professional Californian style (both the recording studio and the supporting musicians are from Los Angeles) that make the difference.

"Ugly City" is indeed a bit ugly (rather unappealing) due to Seals' screeching voice, but then follows the magnificent "Wayland The Rabbit", sung with lush warmth and fervor by Croft. It starts with an atmospheric orchestral intro, upon which the rich minor arpeggio of the acoustic guitar bursts, accompanying the long recollection of the mandolinist's youth, with the discovery of death (of an animal), pain, and adult weeping (by his father). In the second verse, the orchestra also joins in reinforcement, skillfully arranged by the then twenty-year-old David Paich, here at his first major career engagement. It's a somewhat sad song and therefore not for every occasion, but truly touching.

The album continues with the brilliant instrumental "Freaks Fret", a high-caliber guitar + mandolin essay with remarkable cohesion, then concludes with the simply pleasant "Truth Is But A Woman" and the extended, glorious, intense "Fire And Vengeance", a powerful closure to one of the most accomplished works among those ten they published.