JOHN BRAHENY - SOME KIND OF CHANGE RSD 2025 VINYL

John Braheny’s rare Some Kind Of Change LP, issued on the small Pete label out of Los Angeles in 1968, has the unusual distinction of existing like a psychedelic skeleton in his closet. He never made another record; this one is still largely under the radar even for long time deep divers into buried treasure from the vintage ‘60s era.

He became quite famous behind-the-scenes in the songwriting and music biz as the top dog LA songwriting coach for people like Lindsay Buckingham, Stevie Nicks, Warren Zevon, Janis Ian, Stephen Bishop and countless others including one of the most successful hit songwriters of all time, Diane Warren, for whom he critiqued 150 songs when she was 15 years old. You gotta wonder if he played his LP for any of them back in the day or hid it away, since it is pretty far out underground stuff, perhaps too far out if your life’s work is steering budding songwriters towards the top of the charts.
It is a full-on psychedelic classic to my ears, every track a winner, with an unusual blend of earthy folk rock veering off into otherworldly atmospheres. Though not a concept album it hangs together like a journey, the psychedelia peaking with an epic extended final track in classic late ‘60s underground mind expansion style.

John Braheny was born in Iowa on December 9, 1938, first appearing on the early ‘60s LA folk scene and gigging around the folk circuit out west, there is easily findable video of him on the internet performing live in Vancouver in 1965 if you wanna hear him before the psychedelics kicked in. One of the remarkable things about the LP is that he also produced it, indicating no compromise in getting what was in his head captured on tape the way he wanted it. His arrangements are elaborate, bursting with creativity without losing focus, the songs are warm and human at the core with his innovative use of electronics and effects taking them to uncanny places. He’s a proto singer-songwriter foreshadowing the emergence of that LA scene via a side trip through the Twilight Zone. Familiar and mysterious simultaneously. This psychedelic skeleton in John’s closet is in my personal pantheon of the best late ‘60s LA solo artist mind blowers right along with very different sounding but astonishing LPs by Darius, Arthur Lee Harper, Damon and the likes.