I Can't Grow Peaches On a Cherry Tree – Just Us

Chip Taylor and Al Gorgoni made notable behind-the-scenes contributions to pop-rock in their careers, but as the duo who comprised Just Us, they merited barely a pop-folk footnote. It's uncertain when this rare LP was issued, but 1966 seems a good guess; it would have come out in 1965 at the earliest, since the term "folk-rock" is fleetingly referred to in the liner notes. But I Can't Grow Peaches on a Cherry Tree isn't folk-rock; it's polite pop-folk, and more easy listening pop than folk. At times it's a bit reminiscent of some of the more commercial, middle-of-the-road mid-1960s pop-folk acts, like the Pozo-Seco Singers; at others, it sounds like a very whitebread early Simon & Garfunkel. The songs -- most of them original, though there are also covers of Tim Hardin's "Reason to Believe," the Everly Brothers' "Let It Be Me," and the Fortunes' "You've Got Your Troubles" -- are mildly pleasant but unmemorably milquetoast, occasionally pushed even more toward easy listening territory with string arrangements. There's little rock involved (though Al Rogers contributes some drums), and a few of the more haunting numbers have a melodramatic cast that might have made them more suitable for theatrical musicals than pop records. It's a curiously timid affair, only of interest to serious Chip Taylor fans. ~ Richie Unterberger, All Music Guide