Artist:     John Batdorf

Album:     Me and My Guitar

Label:     Self Released

Release Date:     7.24.2018

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BUY DIGITAL

BUY PHYSICAL

Almost half a century ago, a wave of new, mainly acoustic music, from quintets, quartets, trios and duos, came out of the Pacific Coast, which just so happened to have a behemoth major label presence on its shore. Labeled and sold by marketing mavens as Folk Rock, Country Rock, Soft Rock and for the imagination-challenged, Easy Listening, it washed over the nation’s FM dials, Garrard turntables and concert halls.

Some of these ensembles morphed into supergroups that can still fill arenas. Many however, became a footnote to that era, due to stress and strife usually brought on by major label missteps, substance abuse and those silly floodwaters from the Isle of Caprice. Duos like England Dan & John Ford Coley, Seals & Crofts, Brewer & Shipley and Batdorf & Rodney, seemed to be especially hard hit.

After three albums with mixed success on The Big Triple A’s (Atlantic, Asylum, Arista ) John Batdorf and Mark Rodney went their separate ways. John has kept on keeping on, as a successful film and TV composer, session singer, collaborator with others like James Lee Stanley, and a solo act. In his latest CD, he revisits and rearranges songs from his days with B&R and his followup group, Silver, that had one hit in the ’70s, “Wham Bang, Shang A Lang” that he loathed, but label strongman Clive Davis loved.

With a clear, high, cut through the mix, voice that shares tonality with Don Henley, you will have no trouble catching every well-written word. His arrangement of “The Last Time” is so good I would not be surprised if Mick & Keith might reprise it. His new songs, like “Thanks To Me,” will ring the doorbell of any of us music industry veterans, who have suffered “I’ve seen this movie before” situations inflicted by industry gatekeepers, situations that were beyond our control. Batdort closed this 17-song CD with a reflective “Time To Say Goodnight,” but left me with the hope that he doesn’t really mean it.

—Ken Spooner