I dropped out with Tom Rapp, at his invitation, somewhere around the time I discovered his first ESP-disk in a Luv Summer suburban shopping center, drawn to his Elizabethan (even his wife was named Elisabeth) idealism and agape in a land of mammon. He had set up shop in the city of pyrite, fool's gold, and transmuted it.
An unlikely survivor of the most avant label of the avant-sixties. City of Gold (his fifth album, and third for Reprise) is two or three strands of tangling appalachia, the olde English ballad and the fiddle and the waltz; always the waltz. "Thomas" sings Shakespeare, Leonard Cohen, the autobiographical Judy Collins, and Brel-McKuen; but mostly it's his quavery midwest twang telling tales of a land "I don't mean here", but everywhere. His songs reconcile eras, mingling harpsichords and harmonicas, string quartets and dobros.
He stands outside lime even as it passes, a Christ's span of years showing these pearls of wisdom to he a milky strand of dream, the dangling participle of the last song's title , the question continuing on and on, until you wake.
by Lenny Kaye, December 2002
1. Sonnet #65 (William Shakespeare, Tom Rapp) - 0.49
2. Once Upon A Time - 2.40
3. Raindrops - Feat. Elisabeth - 2.05
4. City Of Gold - 3.09
5. Nancy - 4.50 - Leonard Cohen
6. Seasons In The Sun (Jacques Brel, Rod McKuen) - 3.24
7. My Father - 2.22 - Judy Collins
8. The Man - 2.30
9. Casablanca - 2.33
10.Wedding - 1.42
11.The Flower - Did You Dream Of Unicorns? - 2.49
All songs Written by Tom Rapp except where otherwise noted
Musicians
*Tom Rapp - Vocals, Guitar
*Elisabeth Rapp - Vocals
*David Noyes - Vocals
*Charles McCoy - Dobro, Guitar, Bass, Harmonica
*Norbert Putnam - Bass
*Kenneth A. Buttrey - Drums
*Buddy Spicher - Violin, Cello, Viola
*Mac Gayden - Guitars
*David Briggs - Piano, Harpsichord
*John Duke - Oboe, Flute
*Hutch Davie - Keyboard
*Bill Pippin - Oboe, Flute
1967 One Nation Underground (Japan remaster)
1968 Balaklava (Japan remaster)
1971 Beautiful Lies You Could Live In
Tom Rapp
1972 Tom Rapp - Stardancer (2009 Lemon edition)
1973 Sunforest (2009 Lemon edition)
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