Somewhere in the Stars by Richard, Cam & Bert brings a healthy serving of late ’60s Greenwich Village folkie flavor to Record Store Day’s spring 2024 festivities, which take place this April 20. Consisting of Bert Lee, Campbell Bruce, and Richard Tucker, vocalists, guitarists, and songwriters all, the set is also positioned at a stylistic crossroads at the dawn of a new decade. Warmly sung and deftly played, the album is limited to 1,200 copies on transparent cherry vinyl tucked into a tip-on jacket with a heavy insert and a DL code, released by the Delmore Recording Society.
Richard Tucker, Campbell Bruce, and Bert Lee recorded a proper LP, but Somewhere in the Stars isn’t it. Cut after the songwriter demos heard on this set, Limited Edition dates from 1970 and is described as something of a private press that was sold mainly at gigs. That album has been reissued, but only digitally, so Somewhere in the Stars is the place to start for vinyl mavens as the contents are quite appealing. Indeed, this album is now the point of entry for anyone intrigued as to how Richard, Cam & Bert fit into the whole ’60s folk shebang.
To avoid burying the lede, Tucker comes to this record with a rather deep connection to Karen Dalton, the pair formerly married and collaborators. “Are You Leaving for the Country,” a Tucker composition, is well known from Dalton’s 1971 classic In My Own Time, and “Sleeping in the Garden” was co-composed by Tucker and Dalton. These songs combine with “Sitting in the Kitchen,” the album’s title track and “Ship” to establish Tucker’s contributions as central to this set but not overshadowing.
“Sitting in the Kitchen,” distinguished on the album by its basic rhythmic accompaniment, is a clear statement of purpose as crowd pleaser, relaxed but crisp with harmonies that might be influenced by the nascent uprising of CSN&Y, but existing on a distinct and more appealing plane. “Are You Leaving for the Country” is also enjoyable if not as strong as Dalton’s version. “Ship,” the last of Tucker’s compositions, is fast paced with group harmonies throughout combined with sturdy strumming and flourishes of deft picking.
Resonating like it could’ve been cut three or four years earlier for Elektra or Verve Forecast, “Sleeping in the Garden” is a treat. It’s in Tucker’s “Somewhere in the Stars” that the tide turns from folky to singer-songwriter-ish, though at this early juncture the lines are still blurred (and that’s a good thing). Those harmonies, a big part of this album’s thrust, add a certain mellowness, but the vibe is still closer to Tim Hardin, a former collaborator of Tucker and Dalton, than James Taylor, and that’s magnificent.
Those hungering for the lingering hootenanny sensibility of “Sitting in the Kitchen” might find Bert Lee’s two contributions a bit of a letdown, but simultaneously darker and gentle, they keep the record from falling into a monochromatic rut and are worthy songs on their own. The poetic wordiness bursting forth early in “Mmmzzz” reinforces Lee’s songwriting ambition, and “Evelyn,” another track with rhythmic backing, adds weight to the breadth.
“One of These First Nights,” written by Campbell Bruce, connects at once like a recording from 1966 in NYC or from ’74 in Lubbock, TX, a fine soundtrack to sitting on a fire escape or on a front porch. It and Bruce’s tense, unpolished “Stockholm” spread out beyond six minutes, adding further depth and solidifying Somewhere in the Stars as an LP in how it unfolds, if not in its genesis.
There are some interpretations of songs from outside the trio, none stronger than a fleet version of Fred Neil’s “Sweet Mama” that should please fans of the Holy Modal Rounders and early ’70s Grateful Dead. The harmony laden “If You Knew,” written by Charles E. Smith (seemingly a cipher) leans toward pop of an early ’60s strain, but then two traditional numbers, both bluesy, the up-tempo “My Health Is Failing Me Baby” and the slower harmonica spiked “Ain’t It a Shame,” strengthen the folky foundation.
The icing on the cake is that in cohering as an LP, Somewhere in the Stars does so with a delicious lack of premeditation in the trio’s attempt to make it beyond the Greenwich Village scene. Put another way, Richard, Cam & Bert do it right.
GRADED ON A CURVE:
A-
