John Stewart (2) – California Bloodlines

The sound this album has is honestly underappreciated. To me, a 24-year-old modern listener, it gives these nostalgic vibes for a time I've only known thru media and the occasional thrift store find. Like a foggy memory that you can usually only recall in the back of your head, but becomes clearer, if a lil hazy, in your dreams. A family 8mm film where everyone is either too young to recognize, or died before you were born. Its rough and lo-fi, which, when ed by the clicks n pops of playing it on vinyl sounds like the musical equivalent of the patina on a cheeseburger wingadinga boomer's mid-century Chevy truck. Obviously aged, and long-since obsolete by modern standards, but with a beauty all its own for those who dare to look where others turn up their noses.
It calls to mind images of smoking pot in wood-ed basement rec rooms complete with deep green shag carpeting and a fully stocked tiki bar while the melodies of perhaps Tom Rush or Phil Ochs drift thru the air from the hi-fi console against the wall. Perhaps these images were never real in the first place, perhaps they are merely an idealized version of a slower-paced time that I would love to see or visit, but could never live in for fear of being killed for my queerness.

Either way, its a beautiful album, especially, in my opinion, "Lonesome Picker". The 1970 Glenn Yarbrough cover of this song is also very hauntingly beautiful in its own right. I actually found Yarbrough's version first a few years back, right around the time he ed away, ironically enough.