Consumer Guide Album

Garland Jeffreys: American Boy and Girl [A&M, 1979]
Jeffreys has never shown much knack for love songs, and he's not getting any better with melodies either, which means that half of this encouraging comeback gets by on his acumen as a singer and bandleader. But as you might expect from somebody who rhymes "you know what it's like" with "Wilhelm Reich," he retains his feeling for cafe society and his sense of the street, which synthesize into his eternal theme of making it. And while you might suspect him of sentimentalizing the street kids on the cover, he doesn't--he just cares about them, that's all. B