The Mitchell Trio - The Slightly Irreverent (1964/2019)

If the Mitchell Trio's first album of 1964 was a sober affair with occasional flashes of humor, their second was a humorous album with occasional flashes of sobriety. The Sightly Irreverent Mitchell Trio is altogether more theatrical and whimsical, with a distinctly sarcastic edge provided by material from Phil Ochs and Broadway veteran Yip Harburg. Harburg's material here is bitingly cynical, especially "An African Song," a ditty that does nothing less than question the merits of Western civilization. The piece "Rhymes for the Irreverent" is both lyrically and stylistically daring; a guitar plays the old tune "This a Gift to Be Simple," while the members of the Mitchell Trio recite brief poems that question commercialism, government, and even second-guess God. Nor are these the only confrontational pieces. The version of "Draft Dodger Rag," which appeared almost a year before composer Phil Ochs' first release, is fantastic and sung with gusto. This was daring stuff indeed for 1964, and it shows that the Mitchell Trio were keeping tabs on new songwriters at the same time as they mined the traditional folk songbooks. Their beautiful cover of Tom Paxton's "I Can't Help But Wonder" also came out before the songwriter's own debut album, and it's one of the best cuts here. This is one of the finer albums from the group, and it is still an involving listen decades after it appeared.