Though it's missing a few rarities -- namely the
Steve Martin single for Buddha that reunited him with
Michael Brown -- this is the most definitive
Left Banke compilation. It features the entirety of their two late-'60s albums, as well as a couple of singles that didn't make it onto LPs at the time (though they later appeared on Rhino's History) and a previously unissued cut, "Men Are Building Sand." Their debut 1967 LP,
Walk Away Renee/Pretty Ballerina, is an underrated classic of the time, matching smart harmonies and pop hooks to baroque orchestration. Its brilliance casts a bit of a shadow over the rest of this collection. The group's 1968 album, Too, suffered from bloated production and, more importantly, the absence of chief songwriter/arranger
Michael Brown. In turn, the 1967 single
Brown cut under
the Left Banke moniker with singer
Bert Sommer suffers from the absence of lead vocalist
Steve Martin. By the time
Brown and Martin tenuously reunited for a late-1969 single, some of the spark had gone. All of the aforementioned highs and lows of this prodigiously talented but strife-ridden group are on this disc. ~ Richie Unterberger