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Salient. Victoria University Student Newspaper. Volume 37, Number 5. 3rd April 1974

Dory Previn Live at Carnegie Hall: (April 18, 1973, 8pm)

Dory Previn Live at Carnegie Hall: (April 18, 1973, 8pm).

I didn't like this album after listening to all of the four sides, what Billboard Magazine called her 'songs of neurotic grief' and 'comically despairing outlook' but I did like Dory Previn. She's a very funny lady who, like Randy Newman and President Nixon, write positively about the tragic and pathetic.

The songs on this album are a selection from her four studio releases: "Mythical Kings and lguanas", "Reflections in a Mud Puddle", "Mary C. Brown and the Hollywood Sign", and "On My Way to Where" are all to do with modern society, the phobias, idiocies and prejudices of everyday life. In "Mary C. Brown" an unsuccessful actress leaps to fame (short-lived) and "The Veterans Big Parade" is really about our own RSA. One track, "Mythical Kings" is quietly fantastic and is easily the album's best song. Significantly perhaps, it's the only song on the album to deal imaginatively with human experience, and is not mere social comment.

Angel Flight the backing group, are nicely unobtrusive behind Ms Previn's voice and guitar. The audience is just wonderful and as a live album it's a real gem.

I didn't like it much though because the songs all sound the same. I'Il bet you science kids would dig "Moon-rock"; it's about how a moonrock feels about being taken away to earth, and it's easily the worst song on the album. Easily.