Pidgeon - Pidgeon 1969

Pidgeon's obscure, sole self-titled album is most notable for marking the recording debut of Jobriath(here billed as Jobriath Salisbury), who five years later became notorious as a failed glam rocker whose debut solo album didn't come close to justifying its hype and promotional budget. In Pidgeon, however, he was just an ordinary if somewhat effete pop-psychedelic singer/songwriter, also playing keyboards and guitar on the record. Falling on the somewhat heavier and more psychedelic side of sunshine pop, perhaps, it's a record of unsatisfyingly busy, restless songs, written by Jobriath with lyricist Richard T. Marshall. Many of the tracks employ tinny harpsichord and male-female harmonies (with autoharpist Cheri Gage) that are blatantly imitative of the Mamas & the Papas; occasionally, there are more distant echoes of Jefferson Airplane, with Jobriath sometimes faintly approaching the stridency of Marty Balin's vocal style. At times, it's like hearing an unholy collision of the Mamas & the Papas and the Left Banke, but without the rigorous structure and concision John Phillips and Michael Brown were able to bring to those group's compositions and arrangements. Certainly the slightly melodramatic high lead vocals are identifiably Jobriathian even at this stage, but this is really only for serious collectors of either Jobriath or late-'60s Californian psychedelic pop. AMG.

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