Tim Rose - Tim Rose / Love, A Kind Of Hate Story (1970-72) [1999]

This 20-track CD includes all of the songs from Rose's 1970 album Love, a Kind of Hate Story and his self-titled 1972 Playboy album Tim Rose, which is an entirely different record than the self-titled album he made for CBS in 1967. Note that this reissue, sequenced by Rose himself, does not follow the original running orders of the two albums, or even present one after the other, but mixes tracks from the two together. The effect of that strategy is questionable, but if you find it jarring, it's easy enough to reprogram the albums in their original running order (which is given in the liner notes). Love, a Kind of Hate Story is a middling album, produced by Shel Talmy, and a little heavier on the "rock" in folk-rock than Rose's 1960s recordings were. In fact, the backing band is Rumplestiltskin, a Talmy-formed supergroup of session players including Herbie Flowers on bass, Alan Parker on guitar, and Clem Cattini on drums. Rose sounds like a minor-league Joe Cocker on "Ode to an Old Ball," but gets into more original, moody melodies on "I Know These Two People," with its harpsichord, and "Sympathy." "Dim Light a Burning" has some of the same riff-driven urgency found on one of Rose's most famous tracks, "Morning Dew." Still, in all, it's the work of a secondary, though not mediocre, rock and folk-rock singer-songwriter. Rose, or someone, apparently decided he should be more of a ballsy rocker than he had been in the past for the 1972 self-titled album on Playboy. He has a gruff voice that is similar to, but not as powerful, as Joe Cocker's; on the cover of the Beatles' "You've Got to Hide Your Love Away" especially, it sounds like he might be trying to do the same kind of number on Lennon-McCartney as Cocker did on "With a Little Help from My Friends," without as much success. A greater problem is the frequently dull material, including some plodding, generic early-'70s bluesy rockers by Gary Wright of Spooky Tooth (who plays on the album, as does a pre-Foreigner Mick Jones on guitar). "You Can't Keep Me" is a nice, sad folky ballad more reminiscent of Rose's earlier work, but it's atypical of what's to be found on this unremarkable LP.