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Occasional Rain, originally released in 1972, is the first of three albums, Chicago singer/songwriter Terry Callier cut for Cadet in the 1970s with producer Charles Stepney. Eight years earlier Callier, then a soulful blues and folk singer, cut an album of covers (as was par for the course in 1964 at the end of the folk revival, Bob Dylan was just getting his momentum) for Prestige, but it was shelved until 1968 and went nowhere. Callier spent the intervening time touring coffeehouses and small clubs around the country until he signed with Cadet. While the voice is most certainly the same, the nearly alchemical transformation of his sound via his own songwriting -- and the way those songs were treated by Stepney -- is still mind-boggling. Occasional Rain is recorded as a suite; not quite a concept album, there are segues, all titled "Go Head On," fading in and out that introduce various stages in the recording. Stepney put together a band led by Callier's excellent acoustic guitar playing, his own harpsichord and organ, pianist Leonard Pirani, bassist Sydney Simms, and drummer Bob Crowder -- it's the leanest production job in their collaboration. The beautiful touch, though, is Stepney adding a backing chorus with sopranos Minnie Riperton and Kitty Haywood, and contralto Shirley Wahls! The nearly baroque soul sound is heard almost immediately on the classic "Ordinary Joe." The organ and harpsichord momentarily offer the false impression of horns in a pulsing 4/4 before Callier lays out the poetic truth of his protagonist: "For my openin' line/I might try to indicate my state of mind/Or turn you on-or tell you that I'm laughin'/Just to keep from cryin'...Now I've seen a sparrow get high/And waste his time in the sky/He thinks it's easy to fly/he's just a little bit freer than me..." The jumbled images are met with the swell of a taut, killer band; they give him more room out there on the ledge to let his freely associated snapshots articulate into a whole that expresses a transition from heartbreak to resistance to determination, to a holistic spirituality and ultimately to hope as he transfers it from his own view to the woman he is addressing. Whew. These cats could have recorded for Buddah backing the Lemon Pipers, but Stepney keeps it from any saccharine sweetness, and makes it all flow into the direct expression of deep emotion. 


Verenigde Staten
Folk / Soul
Label: Cadet


1. Segue #1 - Go Ahead On (0:42)
 2. Ordinary Joe (4:15)
 3. Golden Circle (3:37)
 4. Segue #5 - Go Head On (0:49)
 5. Trance on Sedgewick Street (6:22)
 6. Do You Finally Need a Friend (5:46)
 7. Segue #4 - Go Head On (0:47)
 8. Sweet Edie-D (5:03)
 9. Occasional Rain (4:05)
 10. Segue #2 - Go Head On (0:53)
 11. Blues for Marcus (4:03)
 12. Lean on Me (6:32)
 13. Last Segue - Go Head On (0:40)