For a singer-songwriter who never made the charts with her solo recordings, Dory Previn certainly had a wide cult. Not many cult artists, after all, get to record seven LPs in six years for big labels and be profiled in Time magazine. Not many artists of any sort get to record a double live album at Carnegie Hall, as Previn did in 1973. Previn has also recalled that John Lennon asked to meet her (and did). Still, there was only so much commercial headway a singer-songwriter who didn't seriously pursue a solo career until she was in her forties could make, particularly one given to singing unusual songs about relationships both abusive and comedic, veterans parades, mythical kings and iguanas, the final flight of the Hindenburg, and the like. Not even recording for Warner Brothers, the label that probably sold more albums by singer-songwriters than anyone else, could break her through to the masses. So it was that her second and final LP for the company, We're Children of Coincidence and Harpo Marx, failed to make any more of a commercial impression than the rest of her work.
Almost uniquely
among the
singer-songwriters of the era, Previn's background was not primarily in
rock or folk. She'd made her first mark in the business as a
songwriter, often in collaboration with husband Andre Previn, and often
writing for soundtracks. While Dionne Warwick's #2 1968 hit "(Theme
from) Valley of the Dolls" is their most well known composition, a
couple of their other songs got nominated for Academy Awards in the
Best Song division, and five of their tunes were used in the Valley of the Dolls movie itself.
By the late 1960s, however, both her marriage and professional
partnership with Andre Previn had ended. "They weren't my feelings,"
Dory explained of her pre-1970 lyrics to Time in 1971. "I was writing from
other people's viewpoints. And while I was married to Andre, I was
never presumptuous enough to write my own music."
In the wake of the mental breakdown following the
breakup of her marriage, she wrote more personal, cathartic songs, and
almost by happenstance, she redirected her focus to her own recordings.
"When I wrote those songs I thought they would be performed by other
artists," she explained to the Los
Angeles Times in 1975. "I certainly didn't write them for myself
because I wasn't a singer and had no intentions of making an album or
performing or anything like that. When I was writing those songs I
didn't expect them to be as self-revealing as they turned out to be. I
thought they were non-specific. All I wanted to do was sell them. I
made a demonstration record, and tried to sell the songs but everybody
thought they were too personal. Then someone suggested that I sing them
myself. It was a daring thing for me to do, but I did it. I guess the
whole thing has turned out OK."
Previn's fear of flying, and reluctance to travel
from her Los Angeles base in general, limited the promotional
opportunities for her subsequent five albums for Mediarts and United
Artists in the early 1970s. Nik Venet, co-founder of Mediarts and
esteemed for his studio work with both stars (the Beach Boys, the
Lettermen, Glen Campbell, Lou Rawls) and singer-songwriters with a
niche audience (Fred Neil, John Stewart, Wendy Waldman), produced
several Previn LPs, including her first for Warner Brothers, 1974's Dory Previn (also reissued on CD by
Collectors' Choice Music). For We're
Children of Coincidence and Harpo Marx, however, the production
reins were taken by Joel Dorn, known for his work with both jazz
artists (including Les McCann, Rahsaan Roland Kirk, and Herbie Mann)
and pop singers (including Bette Midler and Roberta Flack). Several
dozen musicians and vocalists appeared on the tracks that comprised the
final record, the bigger names including singer-songwriter Don McLean
(on banjo), jazz bassist Ron Carter, and bassist/banjo player Eric
Weissberg (of "Dueling Banjos" fame). Cissy Houston, mother of Whitney,
both sang and did the background vocal arrangement for "Children of
Coincidence," which also included vocals by soul singer Judy Clay;
another soulstress who'd have a notable career of her own, Patti
Austin, can be heard contributing backup vocals to several other tracks.
While the New
York Times had praised Previn's songs for "their almost complete
avoidance of specific stylistic identity," the material on We're Children of Coincidence and Harpo
Marx had a bent toward the almost cabaretish and circus-like,
perhaps reflecting her more theatrical roots in musicals. The change in
style and production was not to the liking of Britain's Melody Maker, however. "Her last
album, Dory Previn, released in December 1974, indicated that she was
slowly losing much of her former (slender) talent for irony and subtle
detail—qualities which enhanced much of her previous work," proclaimed
the publication's extensive review. "We're
Children of Coincidence and Harpo Marx continues her decline.
The musical themes, though typically idiosyncratic, have none of her
usual ingenuity, and she has been ill-served both by her two arrangers,
William S. Fischer and William Eaton, and her producer, Joel Dorn, who
lacks the perception and authority of former producer Nik Venet."
Added Melody Maker
in the same review, "Here, as ever, she is obsessed with themes of
casual love ('Children of Coincidence,' with its mutated tango
arrangement) and paranoia and insecurity ('Wild Roses' and 'How'm I
Gonna Keep Myself Together,' which has in its favor a suggestion of
humor). There are no major innovations, though, and it has to be said
that her concern at her various predicaments, both as an artist (the
allegorical 'The Comedian') and as a person ('I Wake Up Slow,' which is
definitely inferior to the similar 'Lady with the Braid' [from her 1971
Mythical Kings and Iguanas
album]), has become rather tiresome. There is no individual song here
with the kind of chilling menace she was able to inject into, say,
'Obscene Telephone Call' from Dory
Previn."
The lighter quasi-musical feel of the arrangements
was broken up by the mildly funk-tinged "Fours" and the more impressive
"Woman Soul," which was a throwback to the artily orchestrated songs
that had figured more heavily in her previous work. Observed Previn to Melody Maker in 1977, "Maybe what I
want to do now, and I think I started it with 'Woman Soul' and 'I Wake
Up Slow,' which can also be a metaphor for 'I fall in love slowly, so
don't rush me, I'm slow to commit,' I think what I would like to do now
is write songs of love, but that deal with the reality of love. The
negativity, the positiveness, 'I love you/I hate you,' the ambivalence,
but saying, 'OK, it's all right.' And that's why I've been doing 'Woman
Soul.' That's my favorite song. But that makes no bones, it doesn't
beat around the bush. It says, 'Hey, there's a lot wrong with this, but
it's not bad. Let's investigate it.'"
We're Children of
Coincidence and Harpo Marx turned out not only to be her final
album for Warner Brothers, but her final solo album to date. Even at
the time of the 1977 Melody Maker
article, she was admitting to "not writing songs now," and considering
concentrating on writing books. "The last album I wrote was more upbeat
[than my previous work], with the exception of one song," she
explained. "And that's I think why I've turned to writing books. I
think certain endeavors have lives and I'm not so sure that songwriting
isn't over, at least for now. I was talking today about recording
again, but I don't have anything to say right now in songs. And until I
do have something to say, I don't want to write. I won't write just to
write songs. I find it much more expansive—I broadened my horizon, I
felt, with this book (her autobiography Midnight Baby) and the next book is
a novel, so I think I'm just trying to grow. Perhaps after I write this
novel, perhaps after this tour."
Though Previn continued (and continues) to write
books, however, she did not release another album, in part because
problems with her fingers eventually made it impossible for her to
continue playing guitar. She did issue a recording mixing recent and
previously unissued material via the internet in 2002, Planet Blue. But it seems like We're Children of Coincidence and Harpo
Marx may well remain her final long-playing recording to enjoy
wide distribution. -- Richie Unterberger
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