The Adventures of Panama Red

It was pretty punk rock in spirit for a country rock band in 1973 to pepper an album with overt references to weed and cocaine, especially when you consider that this album was a minor hit on a major label (Columbia). Produced by storied Muscle Shoals bassist Robert Putnam (Elvis Presley, Roy Orbison), this album has fairly straightforward themes: you get stoned (“Panama Red” and “Kick in the Head,” the latter penned by Grateful Dead’s Robert Hunter), drunk and heartbroken (“One Too Many Stories”), and high on coke in a lonely land surrounded by platform-booted glamsters (“Lonesome L.A. Cowboy”). There’s a bluegrass rip-roar (“Teardrops in My Eyes”) and an early jam-band chestnut (“Thank the Day”). The finale’s an environmental teardrop (“Cement, Clay and Glass”). The band did their best work between 1971 and 1975 because they’d masterfully blended rock, pop, bluegrass, and country-dance with mournful soundscapes and loneliness—plus lots of humor, hillbilly and otherwise. Guests include Buffy Saint-Marie, the Dead’s backup singer Donna Jean Thatcher, and The Memphis Horns.