The 1981 Listening Post - Terry Dolan/Terry & the Pirates - Wind Dancer

 Reviewed by Geo Rule

Released: 1981 Terry Dolan / Terry & The Pirates Wind Dancer Genre: Country-Infused Folk Rating: 3.25 out of 5 Highlights: Poetrain True Medicine Apparently, Terry Dolan was a minor legend in the Bay Area (San Francisco) music scene from the late 60’s until the late 80s or so. Adding to the legend, was the ’73 debut album with a goodly number of big names contributing, that Warner Bro. killed two months before its release. Dolan’s champion at the company moved on, and the new team just didn’t believe in the project. It was finally released due to the efforts of a long-time fan/friend in 2016, four years after Dolan’s death. After that heartbreak, Dolan is reported to have licked his wounds for a while, and then back into the SF scene as the front man for an ever-evolving group of Bay Area musicians as “Terry and the Pirates”. They managed a few small releases from smaller labels, but the promise that Dolan’s career seemed to have in ’72 never recovered. Dolan’s voice is little better than serviceable, but plenty have had great success with less. Looking around for opinions on Dolan, the one that stuck with me as I listened was “Somewhere between Van Morrison and Jackson Browne, but with less talent.” I’d throw some Don McLean in there too. Maybe a bit of J.D. Souther. Very definitely a “story-teller mentality” here. Musically, it’s a mish-mash. There’s quality lead guitar, boogie-woogie piano, and some smoky jazz saxophone. Also, flute. Steel guitar. At one point I thought “is that a xylophone?”, but I suspect it was just a synth. Yeah, hard to hone a coherent marketing message around this. The boogie woogie piano leads the way on “Country Plow” and “Heartbeat.” By far my favorite song on the album is “Poetrain”, a sad ballad about the artist’s life that really hits the sweet spot in Dolan’s voice. Another ballad, “True Medicine”, was also excellent. Made me wonder if he could have made a career out of that kind of stuff and just not muddied the marketing message with the rock/boogie stuff. Probably harder to fill bars with that tho, which seems to have been his meat and potatoes once Warner walked. But I listened to both “Poetrain” and “True Medicine” three times each, so I guess I liked them well enough to justify the rating.