Desert Horizon is harmonica player
Norton Buffalo's second solo album, although it might be more appropriate to borrow terminology from jazz and describe it as his second album "as a leader." Not that
Desert Horizon is a jazz album -- actually, the musical style would best be described as country-flavored pop/rock -- but
Buffalo, a long-time sideman, has gathered a studio full of notable musicians to join him, including
Bill Champlin of
the Sons of Champlin and
Nicolette Larson on background vocals,
Mickey Hart of
the Grateful Dead on percussion, and guitarist Greg Douglas and drummer
Gary Mallaber, bandmates of
Buffalo's in
the Steve Miller Band. As some of these names suggest, the country inflections in the music derive not so much from Nashville as from Marin County, California. This is cosmic cowboy stuff, a kind of neo-Western swing, and to play it
Buffalo has employed no less than three steel guitar players. He sings the songs in a clear, adenoidal tenor, often double-tracking the voice to give it body, and, as might be expected, he takes up much of the space with his harmonica solos, which are more country than bluesy, and certainly very smooth.
Buffalo's solo work doesn't seem likely to lead to a big career as a leader, but it sounds like everybody had fun in the studio on
Desert Horizon. ~ William Ruhlmann