Consumer Guide Album

Norman Greenbaum: Petaluma [Reprise, 1972]
In 1966, practicing as Dr. West, he hit with "The Eggplant That Ate Chicago." In 1969, his jug-rock album Spirit in the Sky fermented until it produced the 1970 AM longshot of the same name. So take last year's bland Back Home Again as premature product and enjoy this right-on-schedule one-of-a-kind all-acoustic project--a record about living in the country rather than escaping to it by a man who's taking his "royalties/And puttin them into this goat dairy." That's from "Grade A Barn," but rest assured that this is a singer-songwriter whose knowledge of pastorale transcends the technical--as in "I'm Campin," about how goat farmers get nature, and "Dairy Queen," about a baton-twirling miss who longs to get the hell away from Petaluma. B+