PF Sloan - My Beethoven (MsMusic)

After forty-two years of relative obscurity, songwriter PF Sloan, the man who penned Barry McGuire‘s “Eve of Destruction,” Johnny Rivers‘ “Secret Agent Man” and “A Must to Avoid” for Herman’s Hermits, delivers an ambitious album that blends classical music with a keen pop sensibility dedicated to composer Ludwig van Beethoven.

My Beethoven is the culmination of a thirteen-year journey in which Sloan, after hearing the composer’s works performed live, sought to learn every minute detail about the German composer. Ultimately, he found that, contrary to the Beethoven of academia, this was the story of a struggling songwriter, reviled in his lifetime, ailed by physical and mental problems, who loved music more than anything and spent his 56 years absorbed by a tremendous passion. Inspired by his new mentor, Sloan taught himself piano, studied composition and orchestral arrangement, and immersed himself in a project that would successfully bring Beethoven out of the stuffy halls of high society and into our living rooms where he belongs. The resulting nine songs fervently embody the spirit of “Louie,” as Beethoven preferred to be called. Displaying a dramatic flair somewhere between showtunes and traditional American pop music, Sloan, with the backing of a full orchestra, explores the inner thoughts of his hero, telling a story of love, bitterness, beauty and humor. Majestic passages lead to quiet reveries, which turn playful and build to bombastic crescendos as the songs flow together like movements of a symphony. It’s a rock opera that eschews the “rock” in favor of classicism and the captivating simplicity of a piano sonata.

“Beethoven gave rise, in my opinion,” PF Sloan writes in the liner notes, “to blues, jazz and rock and roll.” Anyone who doubts his assertion should listen to Beethoven’s 5th, 7th and 9th symphonies, then to My Beethoven and discover all the great things about classical music that have been taken from us by the academics. It won’t be the album that delivers another number one hit for the songwriter, but, in terms of accomplishing his goal, PF Sloan is entirely successful, and, as any musician knows, that is worth more than all the platinum records in the world.