Alexander \"Skip\" Spence - Broken Heart
'Oar' - Columbia Records 1969.
\"Oar will probably find its way onto the dingy shelves of the bargain shops - even a brand new copy may go for a dollar or less...Not many new LPs will sell less, I'm afraid...Much of 'Oar' sounds like the sort of haphazard folk music made around campfires after the California gold rush burnt out - sad, clumsy tunes that seem to laugh at themselves, as Spence takes the listener on a tour through his sex or seven voices...Sometimes his playing is as good as Wild Man Fischer, and sometimes he's perfectly brilliant. The end of this LP could have taken months according to its sound. And 'Oar,' according to its name and rowing, is vague, from every angle and underneath also...But how vague is 'Oar?' Or, how is it vague? Take that 'Diana' track. A sluggish folk tune with an incomplete, not undeveloped, vocal melody, it exists all right, but didn't let it out, perhaps, 'cause he couldn't do it vocally, 'cause he couldn't do the vocal. His voice is like that. Anyway to the public it's incomplete, as in unexposed, not undeveloped. A provocative snatch, I'd call it...Then there's 'Weighted Down,' a long song as sluggish as the short 'Diana,' its melody proves real complete, more like exhausted. I like it and think of Johnny Cash liking it. Through the magic of overdubbing and a producer's imagination, Skip plays all the parts and with himself on 'Little Hands' and 'War In Peace'...'Oar' is a great, great folk music LP.\"
- Review from 'Fusion' - 11/28/1969
Track Listing
01. Little Hands
02. Cripple Creek
03. Diana
04. Margaret - Tiger Rug
05. Weighted Down (The Prison Song)
06. War In Peace
07. Broken Heart
08. All Come To Meet Her
09. Books of Moses
10. Dixie Peach Promenade (Yin for Yang)
11. Lawrence of Euphoria
12. Grey/Afro
