ROBIN LANE & THE CHARTBUSTERS
Imitation Life
Don't let the toy Beatles guitar fool you, Robin Lane is an accomplished guitarist as well as a wonderful singer/songwriter. When Robin Lane showed up in Boston in the late 1970's she was an unknown quantity, very much an outsider in the rock scene. She just sort of turned up one day, and with a deal under her belt announced she was making the move from acoustic folk-rock to electrified band. Outside of the scuttlebutt that her mother was a model and her father is songwriter/pianist Danny Lane, musical director for Dean Martin. Robin was born and raised in the music and entertainment world of Los Angeles. Early on in her teens, Robin began actively singing and performing in the LA folk-rock scene. It was at this time that she began informal collaborations with the band Crazy Horse and Danny Whitten, who Robin cites as the critical force in her development as an artist. This association led to her more formal debut, singing with Neil Young on "Everybody Knows This Is Nowhere". In Cambridge, Mass during the late 1970s, there was an environment of cultural and intellectual experimentation where Robin was able to integrate Punk and New Wave influences, East Coast folk, and West Coast rock into her songs. Her band, the legendary Robin Lane and The Chartbusters, included ex-Modern Lovers guitarists' Asa Brebner and Leroy Radcliffe, who infected her songs and sensibilities even further with their unique and now historic garage sound. Tim Jackson (drums) & Scott Baerenwald (bass) round out the rhythm section. I think Robin considered Alan "Alpo" Paulino as her bass player for a short while, when they were dating just after her arrival, but Alpo's heart and hard-driven work was with the Real Kids and Primitive Souls. Robin Lane and The Chartbusters released three albums on Warner Brothers Records. This is their 2nd album, "Imitation Life" which was well received by the critics including Nat Hentoff who described Robin's vocals on this release as "...ominous, desperately tender, and cuttingly illuminating." There are great songs here that should be re-recorded today by artists in need of rock'n'power-pop hits. Hear: Send Me an Angel; What the People are Doing; Imitation Life; Say Goodbye; No Control; Rather Be Blind; Solid Rock (cool song full of Flaming Groovies riffs and girl group possibilities); Pretty Mala; Idiot; For You. With Peter Wood on keyboards. This is an original 1981 pressing on WARNER BROS RECORDS (3537), with the original printed innersleeve. There is a small delete mark to the upper left edge, otherwise the record jacket appears in overall near Mint condition. The record labels & playing surfaces appear overall near mint to MINT!
