Consumer Guide Album

Mickey Newbury: 'Frisco Mabel Joy [Elektra, 1971]
Newbury has somehow attracted the meaningfulness vote by patching bits of "Dixie," "All My Trials," and "The Battle Hymn of the Republic" into a new copyright called "An American Trilogy," but don't worry, not everything here is so ponderous and thick with emotion. Not so ponderous, anyway--he's still mulling over that love affair, and he does get weepy about it. This is the new Nashville? Because his relationships break up in California? C+