Marty Cooper wrote "Peanut Butter" for the Marathons and "The Lonely Surfer" for Jack Nitzsche, was a member of the pop-folk act the Shacklefords with Lee Hazlewood, and produced a few R&B hits for Bobby Day. If that sounds like a curious résumé for a singer/songwriter whose style is soft rock with a pronounced country influence, let's just say the '70s were not much like the '60s in the music business, and if Marty Cooper's creative evolution was a bit out of the ordinary, an examination of the two albums he cut in the '70s suggests he was entirely sincere about what he was doing at the time. I Wrote a Song: The Complete 1970s Recordings compiles the LPs Cooper released during the Me Decade, 1972's A Minute of Your Time and 1979's If You Were a Singer, and if neither sound like a lost masterpiece, this is solid and well-crafted singer/songwriter material that suggests the influence of the progressive wing of Nashville and the burgeoning Cosmic Cowboy scene in Texas, both a bit off the beaten track when the first album appeared. A Minute of Your Time is a gentler and more contemplative set, with Cooper sounding impressively lovelorn on "Oh, Country," "To Say Goodbye to Anne," and "The Indiana Girl" (which was a minor hit), while showing off his storytelling skills on "The First Band I Played With," "Cowboys and Daddies," and "The View from Ward Three (A Minute of Your Time)," a tale of a songwriter whose failing career takes a particularly heavy toll. If You Were a Singer is louder and more demonstrative than the first album, but is still firmly in the laid-back country-rock mode, and is full of tales of busted romances, colorful alcoholics, and the redeeming powers of music. The album also includes Cooper's original recording of "A Little Bit Country, A Little Bit Rock ‘n Roll," which is considerably less dire than Donny & Marie's better-known interpretation. Cooper's voice is warmly subtle and emotionally evocative, the production and arrangements on both albums are smooth and expert, and there were plenty of acts from the era that fared far better on the charts with much weaker material than this. The liner notes include an extensive interview with Cooper that details the many detours of his career, and the packaging is attractive and includes lots of rare photos; this is an unexpectedly lavish celebration of a seemingly minor artist, and if you have any interest in Cooper's body of work as a headliner, this will show and tell you all you need to know.
© Mark Deming /TiVo