TERRY ALLEN Smoking The Dummy SIGNED

	£		26
	$		34

Terry Allen Smoking The Dummy Signed on the front cover The follow-up to Terry Allen's 1979 double-album masterpiece Lubbock (On Everything), 1980's Smokin' the Dummy largely  pales in comparison to its immediate predecessor, one of the most creative and twisted country albums ever. On its own  merits, however, Smokin' the Dummy is, for the most part, a solid piece of oddball country-rock. Opening with the Little Feat style rocker "The Heart of California" (dedicated to the Feat's recently deceased frontman, Lowell George), the album has a  much more pronounced rock edge than either of Allen's previous albums. The richer arrangements, built on Allen's keyboards and producer Lloyd Maines' overdubbed electric and acoustic guitars (with plenty of pedal steel and slide for texture and  occasional dashes of fiddle and New Orleans-style horns for color), sound terrific. They're particularly appreciated, however,  because lyrically this is probably Allen's weakest album. There's a few of Allen's typically unique vignettes of west Texas  life; in this respect, the almost short story-like "The Night Cafe" is the best thing here, with the spookily mesmerizing "The  Lubbock Tornado," an impressionistic, almost Biblical tale of an April 1970 twister that destroyed a good chunk of the west Texas college town where Allen was raised, a close second. But for every lyrically and musically inventive track like "Red Bird"  and the obsessively pun-filled "Helena, Montana," there's an underwritten country-rocker like "Roll Truck Roll" or "Feelin'  Easy." The nadir is "Whatever Happened to Jesus (And Maybellene)?," which starts out just fine in a dryly ironic gospel mode, but after a clever pun on a popular brand of makeup, it degenerates into a rather pointless cover of Chuck Berry's first hit,  as if Allen couldn't be bothered to finish his own song. Perhaps recorded too soon after the mightily impressive Lubbock  (On Everything) for Allen to have enough solid songs at the ready, Smokin' the Dummy is a frustrating melange of ideas both  terrific and terrible. Side 1 Side 2 The Heart Of California (For Lowell George) Cajun Roll Cocaine Cowboy Feelin' Easy Whatever Happened To Jesus (and Maybeline) The Night Café Helena Montana Roll Truck Roll Texas Tears Red Bird The Lubbock Tornado (I Don't Know) Includes a lyric insert which has a very informative essay written by Terry and published  in a UK magazine taped to the blank back. Lable ~~~ Fate Cat # ~~~ 38121 Jacket ~~~ VG+ (2" Seam Split bottom Right) Disc ~~~ EX Country ~~~ US Lyric sheet insert All LP's will be posted out using proper mailers with stiffeners. Records will be taken out of jackets before posting.                                                         Shipping Costs                                                          For the UK :  £3.00                           For Europe :  £4.00    For the Rest of the World : £7.00          Double albums - UK :  £3.50               Double albums Europe : £5.50                                 Double albums - RoW : £9.00                                                       Items containing 3 discs or more will be calculated at ACTUAL weight and charged accordingly.       All shipping for multiple wins will be charged at actual weight. Please wait for an Invoice.                             I have been buying on eBay now for many years and have over a thousand positive feedbacks. There is a reason why i have opened  a new account with eBay to sell rather than use my existing account. I have in the last year or so returned to my Christian belief.  I want to follow what is scriptual in disposing of what, quite honestly, has been a bit of a millstone around my neck. One day i  looked around at all the many thousand items that filled two rooms and came to a dawning realisation that i had no idea what  90% of all this stuff was. I mean, i could go and buy something, play it once, log it, and that was the last i ever saw of it. So, this has  handed me a golden opportunity to turn around this situation into something positive. I usually find something to say about what  i am selling along with a track listing for albums. I hope that my passion and love for these items shines through occasionally  amongst my rambling. So why would i want to just give them away. Simple, my love for Jesus as my redeemer is even greater.  Matthew chapter 19 verses 16-21 gives my explanation for giving the lot to the Haiti Hospital Appeal. So keep watching as there  are loads of serious stuff to come ( including a couple of hundred Westwood one type radio shows ).