Rory Block — Intoxication

I haven’t had the chance to write about Rory Block before, even though she takes up an amount of space in my CD collection. In the early ’90s we had a strong Rory Block affection, buying seven of her CDs, going to see her live at least twice (and trying to a couple times more, but things came up), and playing those albums over and over. She played the Albany/Saratoga area frequently then, and I associate her with those years of transition to Albany, 1989 and 1990. In more recent years, she hasn’t been getting a lot of play, but I couldn’t say why. She’s a great writer, great singer, and a great guitar player. Just writing this reminds me that I really should be giving her more listens.

So . . . I found this record on a run down to Shady Dog last year. My friend Shawn was itching to get out of the house so we met up down at Shady Dog and went through the bins for a while, and I picked up a handful of discs.

And in the bins, I found this Rory Block record I’d never seen. From the cover shot, I had to wonder: was this blues? Or something else? I couldn’t get a good connection to Discogs to check it out, and I didn’t really study the credits very hard, or I would have noticed that Rory only plays piano and Rhodes on this record. No guitar at all. And she doesn’t even play on every track.

But here’s the thing. In addition to the discount sticker from “Russ Miller ‘The Specialists,'” offering this album for even less than its discounted $1.49, it’s also autographed. On it, Rory signed:
“To Del (Dearest Del,) Thanks so much for everything. Much love, Rory.”

To my mind, if she took the time to write “Dearest Del,” that meant she was signing to someone she actually knew, that this was truly a message intended for whoever Del was. And now it was in the used bins at Shady Dog for $8.98 (so, at least a better showing than $1.49). What happened to it? Did Del no longer treasure it, or had Del passed on and someone decided to sell this off? No way to know. But as a fan of Rory Block, it would have made me sad to have left this signed record unappreciated in the bins. So I bought it and brought it home.

Well. It’s from 1979, and someone thought it would be a good idea to make Rory Block pretty much the same as every other female singer from 1977. It wasn’t. I’m kinda glad I rescued this, but . . . oh, man, it is not a good record. Or at least not a good Rory Block record.