In this album, Joe Cassady and the West End Sound, more than most singers and bands, resubmit familiar experiences to us afresh. Maybe songwriter Cassady’s "Willie Mays" is influenced by Bob Dylan and Jacques Levy’s "Catfish," about Catfish Hunter, another baseball star, but like the album’s other ten original soft-to-driving rock tracks, this song sparkles in its own right: "Pinstripes and diamonds and overhead lights / Million mile stars twinkle through million dollar nights."

Cassady explicitly acknowledges his Dylan influence. Especially when spinning out his prosaic lines while fronting his ragtag-sounding, deceptively musical band, he makes big-time hay from ground that Dylan already plowed. But part of his success is his individuality, and he diverges significantly from Dylan. His singing is more conversational, less apocalyptic, and reading the lyrics, you think about Allen Ginsberg -- another acknowledged occupier of Cassady’s brain.