In Search of Mythical Kings (The UA Years) is British EMI's best-of, drawn from the four studio albums Dory Previn released between 1970 and 1972 on now-defunct United Artists Records: On My Way to Where, Mythical Kings & Iguanas, Reflections in a Mud Puddle, and Mary C. Brown and the Hollywood Sign. (Previn also recorded a live album for UA and two albums for Warner Bros.) The singer/songwriter's subject matter was both intensely personal, reflecting on her own life, from her relationships to her memories of her childhood, and outwardly focused on the Los Angeles movie business of which she had been a part for many years. Though her work was obviously influenced by the Bob Dylan generation of emotionally complex and poetically ambitious songwriters, she was also a Hollywood tunesmith, with the craftsmanlike approach of an Ira Gershwin or E.Y. Harburg. Similarly, her music, while full of the acoustic guitars and loping rhythm sections of folk-rock, also employed pop-music styles that dated back to 1920s jazz and blues. Though her terminology and approach to her subjects sometimes fix her work as early-'70s West Coast, much of it remains effective 20 years after her albums first appeared. The distinctions between the individual albums -- the introspective Mythical Kings & Iguanas, the more episodic story-song cycle Mary C. Brown and Hollywood Sign -- are lost in a compilation that mixes the tracks up, but Previn's songs are sufficiently individual to survive such treatment. Fans of the albums may not warm to the rearrangement, and may mourn the omissions, particularly "Lemon-Haired Ladies" and the medley of songs that takes up the second side of Reflections in a Mud Puddle. But this CD-length compilation (which supersedes the LP compilation One A.M. Phone Calls) is a solid introduction to Previn's work that, for many, will be all they need.
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