Bert Sommer - Inside Bert Sommer 1970

Bert Sommer's second album was the work of a singer/songwriter with too much talent to dismiss as inconsequential, yet not enough talent or originality to qualify as a notable overlooked performer. His voice is the kind that will not be to every listener's taste, as it's so high and shaky at times that it can be mistaken for female singing. At others, however, he's rather reminiscent of the Guess Who's Burton Cummings, though certainly not as ballsy; sometimes he sounds a bit like Paul Simon (whose "America" he unwisely covers here). Though Sommer's songs have a Baroque prettiness, there's also a peculiar undercurrent of melancholy to many of them, as if he's trying to cheer himself up through musical means. Never is this more apparent than in what's by far the record's strangest song, "I've Got to Try/Zip Zap," a first-person lament of a junkie trying to rise out of his personal ashes, though you get the feeling that this is one struggle not destined to succeed. A bit too ornately pop to fit into the early singer/songwriter movement, the record's also way too serious to fall into the sunshine pop camp. Those who've been made aware of Sommer via his Left Banke connections will be interested in the presence of his own version of "The Grand Pianist," also included around the same time on the sole album by the Michael Brown-produced Montage (on which Brown had a strong songwriting and instrumental role). AMG.

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