In Search

Since the dawn of the CD era, a cottage industry has emerged around "holy grail" or "lost" recordings. More often than not, the music doesn't live up to the hype. But In Search, the privately pressed album by songwriter, conceptualist, trickster, and genuine Nashville character Chance Martin, is not only the authentic article, it is virtually unlike any record ever made. Its back-story is as wild as the recording itself --space doesn't permit it being completely retold here (though it's recounted by Martin in the long, captivating liner essay in the booklet). The proprietors of Paradise of Bachelors call this music "countrydelic." With due respect, that's too small a term for what's here. This is the sound of the musically mythological brought to tape. Martin wrote these songs on the famed Martin D-35S that his then employer Johnny Cash had given him; he worked for the Man in Black on and off between 1969 and 1977. He also worked big rock & roll shows and interacted with every lumi