Consumer Guide Album

Jesse Winchester: Third Down, 110 to Go [Bearsville, 1972]
Winchester's first LP was apolitical on the surface and not without its conservative tendencies, but its brooding lyricism and barely contained ferment reflected the force of will it took for him to flee this country. Here the frustrations of exile seem to have gotten to him--he sounds involuted, willfully slight. The title is a football fan's version of "(Stuck Inside of Montreal with the) Memphis Blues Again," and even more telling is the way he feels about fatherhood: "I can't get out of that." B-