Randy Liefer

The artist was on the phone again. “Did you listen to my CD? When are you going to write about it?” You know, I’d been almost fixing to get ready to do just that, but these gosh-darned other discs just kept getting in the way. OK, to be fair to Liefer: He’s a singer-songwriter from Davis whose warm, tobacco-stained voice sounds kinda like Stephen Stills meets Brian Wilson, circa 15 Big Ones. This collection of 10 of Liefer’s songs is a throwback to a time when you could put on a Hawaiian shirt, slap on some Jimmy Buffett and assume that things were hunky dory. This is not national-caliber material, however; Simon Cowles would go rather ballistic over Liefer’s knee-walking tempi and ham-fisted arrangements, although there are some pretty acoustic guitar parts. A few songs have nice changes but go on too long (“Dream of Life”), but most of this sounds like a guy at the local pub who cut a CD.