The Unspoken, The Unheard

What happens when you’re a singer who can’t sing your own praises? What happens when your talent doesn’t come genetically outfitted with the blueprints for an inner Hype Machine? When the process of creating and the act of performing do not demand mutual reciprocation? In other words, what happens when you’re not a Kanye West?

Well. You have a career like Margo Guryan. 

I stumbled on this album, Guryan’s only recorded LP, by chance, while sifting around for nuggets on Emusic–a guilty pleasure from time to time. Needless to say, it didn’t take much for me to be seduced. The uber-smooth vocals, soothing riffs… and FUZZ? DRUMS?! FUNKY TIME SIGNATURES?!

This is essentially a typical late 60’s easy-listening album tricked out by a true musical original with future beat heads and record dorks like us in mind. Listen to “Love” and you’re basically treated to a three part carnival of ill psychaedelic experimentation. “Sunday Morning” opens almost like Billy Garner’s super-funky “I Got Some”. And let’s not forget “Someone I Know” which incorporates those beautifully melodic french horns… directly borrowed from J.S. Bach!

Damn! Girl had it going on! But like I said, the lady didn’t like to toot her own horn.  She went about quietly penning a few more hits here and there, collaborating with a handful of other notable musicians of various schools: jazz, rock, pop. She started a family. But did she ever get her props? Hell no!  So I’ll do it for her, forty years too late. 

To the soft spoken Margo Guryan; to the longevity of good music.

Margo Guryan: Love, Sunday Morning, Someone I Know and Don’t Go Away       
taken from the album Take A Picture on Bell (1968)