Wendy Waldman Playlist
OLD TIME LOVE
Back in ’73, when “Rolling Stone” was still the Bible, the magazine printed a review of Wendy Waldman’s debut, “Love Has Got Me,” that was so positive I immediately purchased it.
Through the magic of the internet you can read said review here:
And although I love every single track on this LP, what hooked me was the second side opener, this.
It was so enthusiastic, so heartfelt, sung with such exuberance that I was immediately closed.
I hope you will be too.
VAUDEVILLE MAN
This follows “Old Time Love” on the LP. You may have never heard the original, only being conscious of the Maria Muldaur cover. But Wendy has nothing to prove, she doesn’t have to take charge of the song, she already owns it, and she’s completely comfortable here, it’s like she’s singing in the room next door, you hear her and cannot help but go inside and marvel.
One ear glued to the radio
One hand practicing the piano
That’s how we lived. Addicted to what came over the airwaves. And then we bought the records, put them on the turntable and then sat there with our instruments trying to learn them.
LEE’S TRAVELING SONG
My favorite cut on the LP, I moved to California, I was wondering what my destiny would be. The entire track is laden with meaning. You know, that anticipation of what’s to be.
This is the kind of stuff acts used to cut when they felt if someone actually bought their LP they’d play it and get to know it, when it wasn’t about cutting for the radio so much as the living or bedroom.
NATURAL BORN FOOL
It swings!
Four killers in a row! This is a rarity in the CD era, it wasn’t so prevalent back then, but the second side of “Love Has Got Me” achieves it.
LOVE HAS GOT ME
Play this late at night, alone, when you’re a bit too optimistic for “Ladies Of The Canyon.” You know that feeling when you’ve fallen in love and you tingle all over…this track encapsulates it.
TRAIN SONG
The opening cut.
There’s a long history of railroad songs in music. And even though Adam Levine sang about a pay phone, most of which have disappeared, I think the days of train songs are done.
What I love about this cut is it chugs along like a train, that’s the groove.
NORTHWOODS MAN
It’s hard for me not to mention every track on “Love Has Got Me,” especially “Pirate Ships,” which Robert Smith of the Cure covered
but in the spring of ’74, long before a year had passed, Wendy put out a second album, “Gypsy Symphony.” Needless to say, I bought it. And went to NYC to see her perform at the Bitter End. And sometime during the performance Wendy stopped and said…THERE’S A GUY IN THE SECOND ROW WHO KNOWS EVERY WORD!
I was embarrassed, but proud.
This is the most accessible song on the LP.
THE ROAD SONG
Slow and meaningful, if you’re the kind of person who reflects, gets into mental backwaters and can only be rescued from them via music, this is for you.
MAD MAD ME
The other famous Maria Muldaur cover. Only this iteration is more Laura Nyro, more just piano and vocal, an expression of personal truth.
SPRING IS HERE
The buzz was gone. “Gypsy Symphony” was not the success “Love Has Got Me” was and there were no hit singles so “Wendy Waldman,” the third album, almost snuck out, there was little publicity, you stumbled on it at the record store, where our generation made regular pilgrimages. And on first listen the album didn’t overwhelm. Production was simple, there was no obvious single, but as we played it that summer of ’75, I came to love it.
And then I never heard it.
The album got lost in a divorce, it ended up in my sister’s ex’s possession and he was holding it hostage and I never heard the LP for decades, until Napster, when everything out of print resurfaced. that’s right, you couldn’t buy an album like this at any price, there were none available, the company didn’t make any and there was no internet to find any.
This is the killer. The first song I put on my Rio MP3 player that had me dancing outside on a cold spring evening.
Spring is here right now. I’m not sure if God is smiling, but I know you will when you hear this.
CONSTANT COMPANION
This is so intimate that teenage girls would swoon and elevate Wendy to the heights if they ever heard it. Even today. This is not that different from Tori Amos, albeit with more coherent lyrics, and it’s a better song, better produced than the girls singing today. This is the opposite of the “Voice” paradigm. Wendy is not mowing us down, not wowing us, but entrancing us.
WESTERN LULLABY
The opening cut is so simple you almost miss its magic. But after a few plays you become enamored. The sound of this whole LP is a revelation.
GREEN ROCKY ROAD
The album closer, you’d be hard-pressed to know it’s not an original. It sounds like the seventies, when we returned to the land, when we lived so much in our own minds.
SECRETS
Where are people with this much talent today, who can write, play and produce?
This is simple, but entrancing.
EAGLE AND THE OWL
Produced by Peter Bernstein, Elmer’s son, the fourth album, “The Main Refrain,” is a sonic masterpiece. When you dropped the needle back when owning an expensive stereo was a goal you were wrapped in a rich sound that demanded attention. Play the album through and through, it’ll relax you and get your mind flowing…
PRAYER FOR YOU
The sun’s sinking down behind the haze and the trees
Just another L.A. day
I did not have an apartment. I was sleeping on the floor of a friend’s house in Culver City. I’d steal off to my sister’s abode in Brentwood to play records and be alone. She lived on the second floor. You could look over the roofs through the palm trees and see the ocean.
I listened to this so many late fall afternoons, while I was contemplating the alienation I was experiencing in law school.
It’s been a long hard year but now the good times are coming
And you should be feeling fine
I had the world’s worst case of mononucleosis, I was at odds with my parents. But in a few short months I had a girlfriend and the good times had definitely arrived.
If I could have you listen to only one Wendy Waldman track, this would be it.
LONG HOT SUMMER NIGHTS
But “The Main Refrain” was not commercially successful. So Wendy regrouped, formed a band and cut a record with Mike Flicker, who was coming off huge success with Heart.
And Mike did a good job, there was no scrim between the music and the listener, the presence was astounding, but “Strange Company” was not successful either.
But they tried, even cut this “single,” which hit not a whit.
“Long Hot Summer Nights” is catchy, it lopes along, you can sing along, but in an era where corporate rock was taking hold on the FM and AM was as cheesy as ever, there was no place for “Long Hot Summer Nights.” Furthermore, Wendy was seen as an album artist, this was just too obvious an effort. Still, it’s good.
THE WIND IN NEW YORK CITY
The best cut on “Strange Company,” it’s really two tracks. An intro and then…
You hear the story of a woman alone in New York City lamenting what she has lost. It’s intense, a wound opened, it’s got a vibe you can only get in New York, where everybody lives on top of each other but no one wants to know your name.
HEARTBEAT
Yes, that “Heartbeat,” the one Don Johnson rode up the chart. It opened Wendy’s 1982 Epic album, “Which Way To Main Street,” which was heavy in a way none of the Warner albums were. It was the height of the new wave, MTV had made inroads, Wendy tried to get on the train, it didn’t work.
DOES ANYBODY WANT TO MARRY ME
Needless to say, “Which Way To Main Street” is out of print, but not only that, it’s unavailable on streaming services. Napster resurfaced everything and now so much has disappeared. The best cut on this album is “Lovin’ You Out Of My Life,” which resonated so during breakups, it’s a hit in waiting, but I can’t find it anywhere online so you can hear it.
Meanwhile, the sentiment here has meaning to those who are no longer in their twenties and are wondering what life has in store.
WHAT IS THE PRICE OF LOVE
And then Wendy disappeared. Two major label deals and then she was done.
And back in the eighties when you were off a major we had no idea what happened to you, truly, it was not like today, when you can look up everybody you’ve ever heard of on the internet.
But in ’87 there was a new LP, on the indie Cypress, and it was a complete return to form, certain tracks that were so good you wanted to stand on the mountaintop and testify.
Like “What Is The Price Of Love.”
What is it?
I’m not sure, but it’s high.
LETTER HOME
The title track of the Cypress LP, this was a top ten country hit the following year for the Forester Sisters.
What happens when you’re in your mid to late thirties and you’re a single parent and you’ve learned too many of the life lessons your parents told you about but you didn’t believe?
You write “Letter Home.”
P.S. I’ll include the Forester Sisters’ rendition, since that is available on Spotify.
RENEGADE SIDE
To every person out there tonight who feels like he don’t belong
Who was born with dreams that seemed so right in a world that seemed so wrong
Yeah, there’s a million more that felt like you until they finally realized
Sometimes the only chance you’ve got is out on the renegade side
And there you have it, the story of a generation, with hopes and dreams that were carried along by the music. I’m still waiting for mine to come true.
Meanwhile, I’m walking the renegade side.
You?
FISHIN’ IN THE DARK
Wendy and Jim Photoglo wrote it, the Nitty Gritty Dirt Band covered it, and not only did it go to number one on the country chart, it lives on today, on the radio, in the the Dirt Band’s shows, in your mind.
We all like to fish in the dark!
SAVE THE BEST FOR LAST
I loved this track long before I knew Wendy cowrote it with Phil Galdston and Jon Lind.
I taped it from VH1 and used to play the video all the time. It made me feel good, it gave me hope.
Sometimes the snow comes down in June
Sometimes the sun goes ’round the moon
Just when I thought our chance had passed
You go and save the best for last
We’re all praying they’re saving the best for last, that it will all work out.
And only a song has the power to keep the dream alive.
TAKE ME IN
And in the mid-nineties Wendy re-formed her hoot house band Bryndle from before her solo career and cut two LPs. It was a veritable all star act, containing Karla Bonoff, Andrew Gold and Kenny Edwards, as well as Wendy.
But wrong time, wrong place. It was no longer the seventies. Music was slicker than ever, big pop and rap triumphed on MTV, rock radio was in the rearview mirror, but this song has magic.
UNBOUND
Then, Wendy formed another supergroup, with Deborah Holland and Cindy Bullens, for the joy of it, not to get rich, but because they love each other and the music.
CAST YOUR SOUL
From Wendy’s odds and ends album “Seeds And Orphans,” this sounds straight out of the seventies, not dated in sound, but overflowing with meaning. Remember when music wasn’t just ditties you bumped hips to?
I certainly do.
This is the music I like to listen to most.
RESTLESS IN MIND
It plays and my whole life is laid out in front of me, from the suburbs of Connecticut to the hills of Vermont to the mountains of Utah to the valleys of Los Angeles.
My dreams keep me on the run, I’m certainly restless in mind. I’m still going, I’m still growing.
And so is Wendy Waldman.
She may not be a household name, but she’s got a body of work. She’s touched my soul. She’s my absolute favorite.
She might be one of yours.
