Dory Previn Mythical Kings & Iguanas CD - Import

You might have expected that British label BGO Records, in reissuing Dory Previn's early-'70s albums as twofers, would pair her debut album, On My Way to Where, with her second, Mythical Kings and Iguanas, and her third, Reflections in a Mud Puddle/Taps Tremors and Time Steps, with her fourth, Mary C. Brown and the Hollywood Sign. But On My Way to Where wasn't released in England until after the others, and BGO bloody-mindedly decided to follow the British release schedule, first releasing a twofer of Mary C. Brown and the Hollywood Sign with On My Way to Where, then following with this disc containing Mythical Kings and Iguanas and Reflections in a Mud Puddle (the second part of the album's title is not listed on this release). While it would have made more sense to do it in the correct order, matching these two albums, which followed each other and were both released in 1971, is less jarring than the other pairing. Mythical Kings and Iguanas is Previn's most consistent and accessible album, one on which the confessional tone of On My Way to Where is more tempered by craft. Like Leonard Cohen and Joni Mitchell, the singer is concerned with intimate relations on such songs as "Yada Yada La Scala," "The Lady with the Braid," "Angels and Devils the Following Day," and "Lemon Haired Ladies," adopting the persona of a needy older woman contending with a young, heedless companion. But she also finds space for "Mary C. Brown and the Hollywood Sign," a commentary on her adopted hometown, and "Stone for Bessie Smith," which reflects on the then recent death of Janis Joplin. Reflections in a Mud Puddle/Taps Tremors and Time Steps, as its double title implies, is really two mini-albums (occupying either side of the original LP). Reflections contains more discursive and less personal songs than those on Mythical Kings, but the intensely personal 13-minute, five-song medley of Taps Tremors and Time Steps, (subtitled "One Last Dance for My Father"), is an account of the singer's learning of her father's death, which sets off a series of childhood memories. It is as idiosyncratic as it is compelling, but probably the least conventional part of Previn's recorded work, which means it makes an odd ending to a CD that began with the more easily engaging material on Mythical Kings. ~ William Ruhlmann

Twofer.