Ruthann Friedman might be one of rock ‘n’ roll’s all-time greatest housemates. In the late 1960s, she shared abodes with David Crosby and members of Jefferson Airplane and The Association. She could probably get a gig detailing the breakfast-eating and shirt-ironing practices of Baby Boomer icons for Behind the Music. Was Paul Kanter a dunker? Ask Ruthann.

A horde of memories isn’t the only thing left of Friedman’s youth, however – she also wrote and recorded a clutch of delicate, insightful pop songs. Friedman began to pursue a recording and songwriting career in earnest after her friends in The Association scored a hit with “Windy,” a tune she handed to them as a favor. Her time in the music industry was tumultuous and short-lived, though, and only yielded a single LP, Constant Companion, released by Reprise in 1969 and reissued by Water earlier this year. In the early ‘70s, Friedman decided to pursue other interests.

Hurried Life compiles home-recorded tracks that never made their way into the public’s hands and casts Friedman as a versatile talent who deserved as wide an audience as the folks with whom she shared living quarters. As one might expect from such a collection, the material herein varies in production value (some cuts hiss and lack overdubs, while others boast multiple cleanly edited tracks), genre (folk, country, baroque pop, and even jazz fit into the equation), and even quality (“Looking Glass” is mid-grade Buffy Saint-Marie, but the title piece is one of Friedman’s definitive statements). But even in her most candid and unpolished moments, Friedman possesses a distinct songwriting voice that asks us to consider her work on its own terms rather than as a portion of a generalized hippie-dippy Woodstock-era milieu.

“ Little Girl Lost & Found,” one of Friedman’s earliest recordings, is the only cringe-inducing spot in the CD – it’s carnivalesque sunshine psych that miserably apes Curt Boettcher’s production style, coming off as tinny and over-adorned. Otherwise Friedman doesn’t sound strictly of-her-era. Her descriptive language in “Sky Is Moving South” at first smacks of LSD-induced synesthesia: “A chill wind breathes a song / Spread white upon the shore.” Turns out she’s actually reminiscing about clouds drifting over the beach, though, and doing so quite poetically. A similar coastal vibe carries “To Treat a Friend,” which could pass for a particularly dour Smiths song or a by-the-numbers Starflyer 59 song were a moody male voice singing rather than a blissed out female voice – it’s about as timeless as pop songs get.

With reissue labels turning their attention toward under-recognized tunesmiths like Biff Rose, Judee Sill, and Juliet Lawson now that there aren’t very many post-punk records in need of repressing, it would be easy to brush Friedman aside as yet another bedroom craftsperson who couldn’t play the industry game. Try taking heeding her words of wisdom instead: “You’ve got to look into his eyes to know the man.” Spend some quality time with these songs and they’ll whisper back to you, words sliding right between your left ribs. – Phillip Buchan (2006, The Daily Copper)