CITY

	City
	Produced by Ron Albert & Howard Albert
	Released on January 1980
	US CHART POSITION #136
	Find it at GEMM
ST-12043 cover [high resolution photo]

C ity asks the musical question, “Who taught the night to be lonely?” The answer is, well... you don’t need to stick around for the answer. The first MCH album had a handful of genuine winners that made the lapses in between tolerable. City doesn’t, so what you get is a flat lapsescape of studio rock that’s too generic for a band as idiosyncratic as The Byrds. If you really buy into the magic of McGuinn and Hillman, you may salvage a song like “Let Me Down Easy” or “City” and chalk the rest of it up to the tastes of time. I like Roger McGuinn’s voice, so I can draw some pleasure from “One More Chance” (a lightweight reggae song) and the silly “Skate Date;” about a dollar’s worth, actually, which is what I paid for this album. The ‘80s found a lot of folkies floundering: Jim Capaldi, Graham Nash, Bob Dylan, they’ve all got a dollar-album or two to their credit. If not for the cruel technology of the compact disc, these records would be forgotten. Instead, like weeds, they rise again under the aegis of some well-meaning (or not) boutique label, posing as posies. But the purpose of a City was served a long time ago. It kept McGuinn and Hillman in the studio, served as a product that probably turned some profit and in its own small way stoked the big music machine for a moment in time. That moment existed in 1980, not in 2006. The wonder of history is that we can be selective about it; pick the choicest moments from a century and sample them. Time buries the unremarkable moments, like City, to be unearthed and dusted off and tagged by people like me. Under no circumstances would this make it into the museum showcase except as part of a complete Byrds retrospective.


ST-12043 back cover	ST-12043 lyric sleeve

TRACK LISTING

WHO TAUGHT THE NIGHT (Chris Hillman/Peter Knobler) 3:13
ONE MORE CHANCE (Roger McGuinn/Jacques Levy) 4:10
WON'T LET YOU DOWN (Gene Clark) 3:54
STREET TALK (Chris Hillman/Peter Knobler/John Sambataro) 2:45
CITY (Roger McGuinn/Camilla McGuinn) 4:38
SKATE DATE (Roger McGuinn/Chris Hillman/Camilla McGuinn) 3:02
GIVIN' HERSELF AWAY (Tom Kimmel/Lynn Tobola) 3:48
DEEPER IN (Chris Hillman/Douglas L.A. Foxworthy) 2:42
PAINTED FIRE (Gene Clark) 2:54
LET ME DOWN EASY (Chris Hillman/Peter Knobler) 3:58

CREDITS

CHRIS HILLMAN -- bass, lead vocals, background vocals
SCOTT KIRKPATRICK -- drums, background vocals
ROGER McGUINN -- 6 & 12-string guitars, lead vocals, background vocals
JOHN SAMBATARO -- lead guitar, background vocals
Gene Clark -- lead vocals (3,9)
Chuck Crane -- guitar
Skip Edwards -- keyboards & steel guitar
Don Gehman -- engineer
Roy Kohara -- art direction
Phil Shima -- design
Jim McCrary, Larry DuPont -- photography

return to McGUINN-HILLMAN discography

REGION	RELEASE DATE	LABEL	MEDIA	ID NUMBER	FEATURES
US	January 1980	Capitol	LP	ST-12043	lyric sleeve

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