Food Of Love

Original released on LP MCA 356

(US, 1973)

"Food of Love" is, by a wide berth, Yvonne Elliman's most, uh, nourishing album. Unlike her subsequent, more mainstream, more American albums, it was recorded in London with an multifarious cast of busy studio aces (among them Caleb Quaye and John Gustafson), some of the more interesting proggers (Rupert Hine, Simon Jeffes, King Crimson founding member Mike Giles) and a bonafide rock star in Pete Townshend. "Food of Love" stands as an anomaly in Elliman's recorded oeuvre, its sound more ambitious and daring, allotting more space to instrumental colour, and Yvonne's naturally bracing earthiness shades the music throughout. That side of her would largely be sanded down beyond this point. The album was issued on Purple Records, which may have come about from Yvonne's days in Jesus Christ Superstar alongside Deep Purple's Ian Gillan (and Gustafson, who played Simon Zealotes). Labelmate Rupert Hine produced the LP and co-wrote 6 of its 11 tracks. The Hine/David MacIver pieces are generally excellent, particularly the rueful grand finale "Love's Bringing Me Down" and a raucous ode to gluttony, "Casserole Me Over" (embodying the gastronomic palette of the album). Musically speaking, the mood is a varied as it is cohesive, eclectic without being scattered. In turn or at once folky, bluesy or hard rocking (a sharp version of The Who's "I Can't Explain", with its composer windmilling away, and a lead vocal that sears the varnish off old Dippity-Do's orginal), and gilded with splendid orchestral gingerbreading here and there, courtesy of Penguin Cafe Orchestra-tor Jeffes.