It's not often that a single album is sufficient to place a new performer among the first rank of recording artists. Jackson Browne's long-awaited debut album chimes in its author with the resounding authority of an Astral Weeks, a Gasoline Alley, or an After the Gold Rush. Its awesome excellence causes one to wonder why, with Browne's reputation as an important songwriter established as far back as 1968, this album was so long in coming. Perhaps Browne acquired performing abilities worthy of his writing skill only after much hard work. Whatever the reason, Jackson Browne (Asylum SD 5051) is more than worth the years it took to be hatched.
that Browne has honed his performing skill mainly because of a vocal style that bears a certain resemblance to Van Morrison's. Browne may well have used Morrison as a model, because that singer's dynamic phrasing and syntax–with those mid-phrase halts, word-packing and spreading, and drawn-out syllables–are integral parts of Browne's style, too. The Morrison influence is most audible in "Rock Me on the Water" and "Under the Falling Sky," with their lilting, gospel-like movement (these two would make excellent singles) but it comes across in subtler ways in several other songs.
But what might have seemed uncomfortably derivative in other hands becomes merely a sound starting point for Jackson; his artistry takes the Morrison elements to a place completely his own. For one thing, Browne's voice is uncolored except for a bluegrassnasality; it's not a particularly powerful voice, either, but it's quite flexible. That straight-faced, country - boy sound–somewhat akin to Clarence White's in tone–lends his vocal style an endearing, innocent earnestness that enables Browne to deal with overtly romantic themes without ever coming across as self-conscious or precious.
The songs themselves reveal Browne as a classic romanticist; they're possessed of that same earnest intensity found in his voice, and their prevailing moods are so strong that singers as diverse as Tom Rush, Johnny Darrell, Nico, and Clarence White can sing them without significantly altering their tone or substance. Browne's songs, no matter who sings them, seem to have a life of their own. After hearing this LP, it's clear to me that no one has done them nearly as well as Jackson himself, and it's not likely that anyone will.
"Jamaica, Say You Will," the opening track, is an exquisite love song, and it perfectly embodies Browne's writing and performing approach. This narrative of the relationship between the singer and Jamaica, the daughter of a long-absent sailor, vividly confirms Richard Goldstein's 1968 perception that "Jackson writes with rocky seacoasts in his head."
A full-chorded grand piano gives the song a rolling, even motion and a certain austerity of mood. Browne plays his voice off the piano's restrained tone, soaring up from his ow
Released in 1972, Browne's debut album had all the markings of the definitive L.A. songwriter's understated brilliance already in place, revealing a talent that seemed to arrive fully formed. While "Doctor My Eyes" is not his biggest hit, it remains one of his finest songs, and it sits here among a set of characteristically straightforward, insightful pieces.
