LPCDreissues: Looking forward to the past

The old adage "timing is everything" certainly applies in the case of Jerry Penrod. Had the singer-songwriter recorded the single Junkie John a few months earlier, Penrod, whose albums appeared under the name of his alter-ego, Tim Dawe, would surely have become a major star. However, as misfortune would have it, just as Junkie John, a catchy psychedelic rock tune, was beginning to achieve serious airplay, America's dreaded FCC launched a crack-down on all drug-related music, thereby denying Junkie John the commercial success it was surely destined to achieve. Penrod, for his part, was philosophical "I had a great fifteen minutes while it lasted" he later opined.Penrod, which originally appeared in 1969 on Frank Zappa's vanity label, Straight Records, (STS 1058) along with albums by Tim Buckley, Judy Henske, Captain Beefheart and Alice Cooper, is justifiably regarded as one of the greatest psychedelic albums of all time. Stuffed full of folk-rock, varied keyboards and inspired acid guitar, the album contains what are now regarded as four self-penned masterpieces, and although Dawe/Penrod only added one further album to his canon of recorded work (Timothy And Ms Pickens With Natural Act, released on Half Moon Bay Records in 1976), he contributed a number of songs to albums by It's A Beautiful Day, Rod Taylor, and even Iron Butterfly, of which he was an early member.In every sense, from its idiosyncratic cover art to its incredible music, Penrod is a psychedelic classic. Highly recommended