Bill Mumy – Dying To Be Heard
You may know him as Lennier or Will Robinson or that creepy kid who cropped up again after 40 years in the Twilight Zone, but Bill Mumy’s also a more than capable musician, as demonstrated by this early solo effort.
It’s easy to say that Dylan is a prominent influence on Mumy’s own brand of singwriting, but think electric Dylan here. Mumy lets loose with some wailing electric guitar work in the background of his folky tunes. “Ambiguous Sky / Monte” is not only the best example of this electric-era Dylan influence, but it’s a catchy song with a very Dylanesque lyric. But Mumy isn’t just paying homage to Bob Dylan for the whole running time of the CD – at other times, he backs off of the electrics and goes for a feel-good folky sound, as with “My Sweet Seleena”. Other highlights include “Our Beautiful Life” and “Yes You In The Blue”.
And finally, you may laugh at the thought of Mumy penning a heartfelt, somber tune called “The Ballad Of William Robinson”, but don’t you dare laugh. It’s the crowning jewel of Dying To Be Heard, and actually puts a mature spin on Mumy’s adolescent Lost In Space character, updating us on what has happened to the Robinson family since their last televised adventures. The performance is outstanding, it’s some of Mumy’s best singing, and the whole song is built around a positively mesmerizing guitar lick with some equally hypnotic (and appropriately spaced-out) keyboard backing courtesy of Mumy’s son Seth. A must-listen, whether you liked the song’s inspiration or not.
It’s a pity that Bill Mumy isn’t the musical superstar he deserves to be. I applaud his acting talents, and I’ve always enjoyed them, but sometimes I think his screen fame has shafted him when it comes to getting his music taken seriously. Just about any Bill Mumy album will help you recover from the notion that every actor’s musical ambitions must necessarily culminate in a disaster of Golden Throats proportions. I highly recommend this one to you.
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- Nero’s Fiddle (4:03)
- My Sweet Seleena (3:51)
- Ambiguous Sky / Monte (6:08)
- In The Grand Scheme Of Things (3:27)
- Dying To Be Heard (3:35)
- Our Beautiful Life (5:42)
- Yes You In The Blue (5:14)
- Waiting (Little Seattle Junkie) (7:48)
- Denver Thing (3:19)
- I Know We All Go (2:27)
- The Ballad Of William Robinson (3:35)
Released by: Renaissance Records
Release date: 1997
Total running time: 51:52
Another musical outing for a former member of the Babylon 5 cast, In The Current is Bill Mumy’s second album on Renaissance Records, and it demonstrates his incredible versatility. From the folky alternative rock style of Angel’s Observation to the gentle, well-harmonized balled “The Climb” (evoking memories of some of the best Crosby Stills & Nash tunes), Mumy covers a lot of ground. Able to go acoustic or electric from song to song, Mumy kicks off the album with the Dylanesque “Lost In Babylon” – a B5 reference in title only. (For overt Babylon 5 references, check out “Stronger Than Gravity”, which is subtitled in the lyric booklet as “To Delenn from Lennier.”) There’s even a slightly suggestive love song in “We Could Use A Little Something”. Mumy skips around different genres like he’d walk from one room to another – and yet most of the time (though not always) he manages to evade many of the clichès we’ve come to associate with the various styles.
Bill Mumy’s not going to wind up on a Golden Throats album anytime soon. This is one actor who is a serious musical contender (and it’s worth noting that Mumy was the musical backbone of the Be Five project which was reviewed here last month).