VAN DUREN - Are You Serious?

Wednesday, June 18, 2008 at 04:32PM
soundscapes in Pop/Rock, Reissue

Purse-lipped and sleepy-eyed on the black-and-white cover of this 1977 debut for Memphis indie Big Sound Records, Van Duren was waiting for a closeup that never quite came. Having grown up and casually played with Big Star's Jody Stephens and Chris Bell earlier in the decade, it's only fitting that when the time came for Duren's own material to be released, it too bore Anglo-leaning, proto-power-pop tendencies. Similar to Emitt Rhodes, Paul McCartney or Todd Rundgren, the piano work is as impressive as the rockers--songs like "Waiting" show he learned just as much from pre-Wings Paul as Chilton/Bell.

Article originally appeared on Soundscapes - 572 College Street Toronto (http://www.soundscapesmusic.com/).