Consumer Guide Album

Hirth Martinez: Big Bright Street [Warner Bros., 1977]
I like a man whose dream of utopia goes "And they never grew old/And they never caught a cold," and I like this record. Hirth has learned to use his wizened voice more forcefully without relinquishing any of the amateurism that is his special charm, and since John Simon is a relatively reticent and eccentric producer, the funky gloss that so often accrues to El Lay favorites never turns to glitz. B+