First Utterance is one of my favorite albums of all time. I went into To Keep From Crying expecting it to be completely generic southern pop garbage; totally disposable.

It uh, wasn’t. I think? As far as I know. I don’t go out of my way to listen to a lot of (I guess) early ’70s folk pop, but I have heard some, and this is still very out there compared to anything I’ve heard before. It’s certainly more accessible than First Utterance, but it’s still too weird to be considered anything close to “commercial,” back then or ever. Hence the reason why it bombed financially, obviously. I need to relisten to it before I have more to say, but come on guys. To Keep From Crying isn’t First Utterance. It isn’t trying to be. But there’s something more here than may meet your possibly biased ear at first. Now if I could only tear myself away from First Utterance to give this more listens…