Artist: Chris Hillman
Album: The Asylum Years
Label: Omnivore Recordings
Release Date: 2.9.2018
I confess to having missed Chris Hillman’s Asylum years. I liked Souther-Hillman-Furay and McGuinn, Clark and Hillman, but in between, Hillman released two solo albums: Slippin’ Away in 1976 and Clear Sailin’ a year later. Maybe, I feared, these two albums remained under the radar because they simply weren’t very good, but I enjoyed listening to many of these 40-plus-year-old songs as if they were new.
After the Byrds, the Flying Burrito Brothers and Manassas, the Chris Hillman of the mid-’70s leaned more heavily on pop influences than the country rock sound he helped create. The ten songs originally released as Slippin’ Away are a lively mix of soft rock (“Step on Out” and “Falling Again”), ersatz Eagles (“Take It on the Run” and “Witching Hour”), reggae (“Down in the Churchyard”), ballads (“Love Is the Sweetest Amnesty”) and bluegrass (“Take Me in Your Lifeboat”). Joining Hillman for the sessions was an impressive lineup of past and future bandmates: ex-Burrito and Eagle Bernie Leadon, bluegrass master and long-time collaborator Herb Pederson, Poco and Eagles bassist Timothy B. Schmit and L.A. session aces Jim Gordon, Leland Sklar and Russ Kunkel.
The next ten songs from Clear Sailin’ add some sprightly sax as Hillman moves even more decidedly into Power Pop. The result is a little less satisfying, but there are some toe-tappers (“Nothing Gets Through”) and impressive vocals (“Quits”) that seem to have paved the way for the McGuinn, Clark and Hillman years that followed.
Hillman returned to his roots in the ’80s, focusing on country, rock and bluegrass with people like Pederson and the Desert Rose Band. The Asylum Years represent a period in Hillman’s long and varied career, not the core sound for which he will be remembered but a pleasant diversion worth exploring.
—Lou Montesano
Be the first to comment!