Verities & Balderdash ＜限定盤＞

ソフトリーな歌声と人懐っこいメロディで人気を博したジェントル&メロウなフォーク・ロック・シンガー・ソングライター、ハリー・チェイピン。日本での人気と知名度はいまひとつながら、本来ならばケニー・ランキンやジェームス・テイラー、ニルソンらとも並び立つ名ヒットメイカー/プロデューサーです。全米4位を記録し、彼の最大のヒット・アルバムとなった本作は74年の4作目で、不朽の名曲「Cat's in the Cradle」をはじめ緻密で豪華なアレンジによるサウンドが散りばめられた名盤です。

時代を超えた不朽の名曲「Cat's in the Cradle」は2025年のドキュメンタリー映画の主題となり、複数の世代のアーティストたちが、この曲が自身の人生と創作活動に与えた影響について語っているほど。この曲は本アルバムの主役であるとともに、続いて展開される大胆で個人的、社会的な物語の道標としての役割も果たしています。もちろんサウンドにおける華麗なフォークロック・アレンジは問答無用の素晴らしさです。

オリジナル・マスターテープから音源を採取し、180g 33回転LPとしてフィデリティ・レコード・プレッシングでプレスされた限定盤。オーディオファイル品質での初めてヴァイナル化。卓越した透明感で奏でられるサウンドを鮮明に浮かび上がらせ、上品なストリングス・アクセントの広がり、バックボーカルの空気感、そしてサウンドステージの奥行きと広がり、そして新たに発見された明瞭さ、開放感、そして音像定位は、チャピンの優しい歌声と魂のこもった音色、そして彼の言葉に宿る時代を超えた知恵の、変わらぬ魅力を浮き彫りにしています。

Verities & Balderdash is a very strange and wonderful album. "Cat's in the Cradle" was the driving force behind the album's sales, but there's a lot more to appeal to listeners, along with enough personal, topical material to make it seem a bit didactic at the time, but Chapin was cultivating a politically committed audience. Verities & Balderdash walked several fine lines, between topical songwriting and an almost (but not quite) pretentious sense of its own importance, humor and seriousness, and balladry and punditry, all intermingled with catchy, highly commercial ballads such as "I Wanna Learn a Love Song" (which is about as pretty a song as he ever wrote). Chapin is in good voice and thrives in the more commercial sound of this album, which includes lots of electric guitars and overdubbed orchestra and choruses. He still loves to tell stories -- most are like little screenplays, with "Shooting Star" offering details and textures and a sense of drama akin to a finished film (in the manner of "Taxi"). The "haunt count" on this album is extremely high, boosted by gorgeous ballads like "She Sings Songs Without Words." "What Made America Famous" may be the one song that comes off as dated, a parable -- perhaps reflecting the near-meltdown of politics surrounding the Nixon resignation of 1974 -- about long-haired teens and crew-cutted firemen who discover a mutual dependence and respect for each other and reconciliation; it seems like ancient history and probably will be incomprehensible to anyone born after 1968. Chapin also lapses into excessive dramatics in the finale, which shamelessly borrows a couple of lines from one song out of the musical 1776. The album also offers a pair of humorous numbers on "30,000 Pounds of Bananas" and "Six String Orchestra," not the most significant songs in Chapin's repertory, but both adding balance to the mood. Producer Paul Leka (the commercial genius behind Steam's "Na Na Hey Hey Kiss Him Goodbye") retained some elements of the relatively lean sound that characterized Chapin's debut album, embellishing it only enough to give the album some potentially wider commercial appeal. Even the cover art seems to reflect the two delightfully contradictory thrusts of this album: an image of Chapin posed like Uncle Sam on the military recruiting poster with a wry smile on his face. ~ Bruce Eder