Alex Hassilev of the Limeliters was able to get some star talent to back Malvina on the album he produced called Malvina Reynolds, and Century City Records issued it in 1971 with a psychedelic cover. Here’s the line-up: Gene Parsons of The Byrds, Rodney Dillard, Herb Petersen and Dean Webb of the Dillards, Maury Manceay and Mary Nance of The Sunshine Company, Bob Simpson, Carole Miller, and Debbie Lampel of Camp Hilltop, Clark Maffitt and Brian Davies of Maffit and Davies.

A few years later Century City went broke, and the unsold albums were locked in the warehouse for a while. Malvina got back the rights to the master, though, and issued the album on her own label, Cassandra, in 1977, with the many-colored cover reproduced in shades of blue. On the back cover, instead of the text of Malvina’s “Soul Book” in my calligraphy, she put clippings related to the songs. Here are the songs:

Alcatraz, Like the Miller Grinds the Wheat, Tungsten, Cement Octopus, The Albatross and It Isn’t Nice (alt) were previously issued as singles.

The Rand Hymn, Plutonium, Buying the Package, Overtime, Nancy Newman and There’ll Come a Time (alt) have never before been issued.

I met David Thrussell, the Australian musician who produced the CD, when he was touring the U.S. We hit it off well and had a pleasant long lunch on a pier in San Francisco. He and his team cleverly got around the reduced size of CD covers by reproducing sections of the original LP cover at more-than-life-size inside the booklet, along with photos and information not on the original packaging.

PS:

 

©2007 by Nancy Schimmel