Nancy Priddy: You've Come This Way Before (1968)

From the stranger corners of my collection, here's one that's... odd. Is it psychedelia? Sort of. Pop? Lounge Music? Folk? Sunshine pop?

I can't say. Just that it's... odd. And really rather charming, in an off-kilter, what-the-fuck way that made the late 60s such an interesting time for music.

Nancy Priddy is an actress, and, on top of that, the mother of actress Christina Applegate. (Hey, have you watched Dead To Me on Netflix? Damn, that's a great show... go watch it if you haven't already.)  She also (at least according to Wikipedia) once dated Stephen Stills and inspired the great Buffalo Springfield track "Pretty Girl Why." Sure, why not?

I think this was her only proper album (until an interesting, jazzy follow-up some 40 years later). But it's an interesting little oddity that's tough to pigeonhole.

The title track that opens the record is the strongest song, probably the most obviously psychedelic (shades of Jefferson Airplane, though Priddy's vocals are more in line with a pop chanteuse like Ann Margret than Grace Slick) crossed with a hint of lounge music. It's entrancing and mildly trippy, something that deserves more attention in the pop-psych canon.

"Ebony Glass" is darkly haunting; the ode to her daughter, "Christina's World," has a similarly eerie vibe, as does the disjointed narrative of "And Who Will You Be Then."

A few songs drop some of the skewed psychedlia in favor of a more direct lounge/pop sound, like "We Could Have It All" and the perky, upbeat, "My Friend Frank," which sounds like something you'd hear playing in the faux-hipster-nightclub in a late 60s B movie.

Not an essential album, but an intriguing listen for seekers of trippy artifacts of the psychedelic era.

Here's an audio rip of the title track:

 (You can hear the whole album ripped to YouTube here.)