Alan Munson - Good Morning World 1975

Alan Munson, the songwriter of Cooley- Munson duo, continued the folk- rock way. It took him some time, but in 1975 he was ready for what is (for him, and for me too), his best 70’s work.

The beautiful vocal harmonies on this solo album are still there, as if he never quit as a duo, just like the impression on the back cover, where you can see him taking a pose before a landscape (right),.. with himself (left). The liner note introduction mention an important pre-dating experience which changed his life as a musician, which started with a feeling of disappointment after having visited a producer in LA, who said he had to work on more self-experienced songs before coming back. And that’s what he did, literally and drastically, leaving us with a witnessing album of such an experience.

In what we know about Buddhism and other researches for enlightenment or spiritual relief, we often hear about the idea that we should quit our daily lives to be able to meditate on our direct way of experiences. If we should do that literally any time it could also mean a fleeing of any responsibilities and commitment, while we could also have practiced this by making only a conscious distance with our personality alone, while taking only a distance from daily life in mind, while still consciously participating with attention to all the confronting deepest inner needs which we could gradually fulfil in this context as well.

Just at the emotional highlight with a relationship and meeting point, being afraid that one day this might change to something bad, that’s where the songwriter left, trying to keep to good feeling and memory, that should be able to kept high also without this. (I must say I have experienced a likewise situation, but now I know that such decision also destroyed that special connection, and that it wasn’t able to live on without it. (Later I realised that eventually, in a commitment, you are destined to go to a next level, where we can experience who we as individuals and as caretakers for others really are, so that for those who really care about the other this feeling can not become worse, while only illusions and situation-depending experiences can be destroyed by time and change).

Alan Munson went for keeper of the energy of the experience itself, which, captured in a moment on an album, of course was able to bring something of that special moment of this, into words and music. By Gerald Van Waes.

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Cooley & Munson - In Debt 1972

In Debt" is a major collectable item with the folk-rock and psychedelic rock listeners and collectors. Today, original copies of this record fetch quite interesting sums when changing hands in record fairs or internet auctions.
All tracks are original compositions, and the style is very personal. It's folk-rock, but many tracks are quite psychedelic too. But don't look close for influences, they will not come to mind that easily. Bill and Alan had their own psychedelic folk-rock style.
Never reissued before in any format, now here we come with a splendid reissue. Remastered sound taken from the original mastertapes. A must!

Bill Cooley and Alan Munson were two friends in Santa Barbara, California, living their early twenties writing folk-rock songs for their pleasure. That was 1972, and they decided to put these songs into studio, autoproduce the album and press a tiny quantity of 500 pieces hoping it could help getting a contract with a major company. This never happened, as you would have guessed, and sure this fact helped making their sole album, "In debt", a major collectable item in the folk-rock and psychedelic rock listeners and collectors. Today, original copies of this record fetch quite interesting sums when changing hands in record fairs or internet auctions.
Being a private pressing, you can easily imagine its not a big production, but no care. This album has the right feel and you wont need anything else to make it one of your recent faves. All tracks are original compositions, and the style is very personal. Its folk-rock, but many tracks are quite psychedelic too, in their own way. But dont look close for influences, they will not come to mind that easily.. Bill and Alan had their own psychedelic folk-rock style, and the raw, sometimes amateurish feel that these recordings have, give the album the final distinctive touch. Never reissued before in any format, now here we come with a splendid reissue, with the collaboration of the guys. Remastered sound taken from the mastertapes, and including an insert with linernotes and unseen pictures.
CD version comes with booklet and outer slimcase.
Alan Munson kept going the folk-rock way and released two solo albums during the 70s too, which we are also re-releasing along with "In debt".

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