Tenderness and Sting From Joy of Cooking

The words of praise at the beginning of the liner notes to Capitol Records’ new Joy of Cooking retrospective album are by country star Naomi Judd.

It would probably be easy to collect similar endorsements from dozens of other artists, especially women singers and writers who were inspired by both the quality of Joy of Cooking’s music and the unmistakably female viewpoint of most of the lyrics.

But there’s something in the personal, down-home reference of Judd’s comment that speaks to the heart of the group’s individuality and appeal.

“When Wynonna and I began singing together . . . in Kentucky, we listened to an Appalachian female bluegrass duo named Hazel and Alice,” she noted.

“When we moved to Marin County in the ‘70s, we discovered the Joy of Cooking. They were Hazel and Alice’s West Coast contemporaries. We loved their hip, eclectic and original music.”

Though far from Appalachian bluegrass, Joy of Cooking--a three-man, two-woman group--mixed country, blues and folk strains in ways that were as intimate and unaffected as the mountain music that the Judds admired in Kentucky.

Above all, Joy of Cooking offered the frequently exquisite songs of Terry Garthwaite and, especially, Toni Brown--insightful songs that examined relationships with both the tenderness and sting of real life.

Sample lyrics from Brown’s “The War You Left,” one of the album’s 18 selections:

Well, I thought that I was a strong woman

Until I met you I belonged to living

But you took all that I had to give

And you called it giving

Despite wide acclaim, Joy of Cooking didn’t have much commercial success. The group’s first single, a medley of “Brownsville” and “Mockingbird,” reached No. 66 on the pop charts in 1971, but the debut album stalled at No. 100. None of the group’s subsequent albums made it that far on the charts and the partnership eventually ended.

Garthwaite is still involved in music as a singer and writer, while Brown--who has a master’s degree in clinical psychology--runs a group home in Marin County that specializes in young people having trouble adjusting to society, according to Todd Everett’s liner notes.

Various members of the group--whose original lineup also included Fritz Kasten on drums, Ron Wilson on percussion and David Garthwaite on bass--still get together for an occasional benefit performance in the Bay Area.

About the group’s role in the evolution of female rock, Brown says, “In the area we were playing at first, it was a natural thing. There were a lot of women folkies; all we did was plug in.”