A New Life
The album cover perfectly sums up what to expect. A horse walking down a path on a high mountaintop and looking down at a few small homes in the fields, with a beautiful and colorful image of distant mountains in the background. It's not only a fantastic cover to analyze, but there may actually be a few ways to interpret it, too.
Such as... maybe the horse riding high in the mountains is an indication of the bands quick rise to stardom? Or maybe I'm thinking about it too hard and the album cover simply illustrates the beauty and colorful creativity that can be heard in the music.
A New Life is a minor masterpiece and REALLY shows just how much further the Marshall Tucker Band were willing to push the boundaries as far as how far the southern rock formula can go. This album is a drastic step forward from their self-titled debut in terms of songwriting and instrumental variety.
"You Ain't Foolin' Me" has a very good verse melody and chorus, but that's not *quite* what makes this song stand out so drastically. It's shortly after the 2 minute mark when the song REALLY takes off and confirms (to me, at least) that the Marshall Tucker Band are the real deal. The saxophone solo is incredibly melodic and perhaps this is a total coincidence, but the first few lines of the sax solo totally remind me of a Roxy Music song from their debut released back in 1972. From here, well, images of the album cover noticeably come to mind as the saxophone takes a sudden departure and a dreamy guitar solo elevates the greatness of the song to even higher heights. This instrumental middle section resembles *no* other southern rock band. Not the Allman Brothers Band or Lynyrd Skynyrd. It's completely unique.
If you enjoy the instrumental creativity in "You Ain't Foolin' Me" be prepared to have your socks totally knocked off upon experiencing "Southern Woman". What starts off as a highly memorable vocal melody suddenly (eventually- 3 minutes later) sends me into total, unexpected shock as a straight up saxophone solo makes a VERY surprising appearance. Unlike in the song I mention above, this particular sax jam actually *jams* for a minute or so, and it sounds completely different from anything any other southern band had ever attempted, before or since. It's flat out awesome. Perhaps it's inspired by Van Morrison's "Moondance" a little bit, but it's certainly no ripoff or anything.
The title song brings me to tears, seriously. I actually cried the first time I heard it... alright make that the second time (because I wasn't paying attention to it the first time, for some clueless reason on my part!) The verse melody is another quality piece of writing, the lyrics are touching and meaningful, but it's the flute jam and the gradual morph into an electric guitar jam that BLOWS MY EMOTIONS COMPLETELY AWAY! There's quite a few moments of this song that move me emotionally, but the jam takes the cake.
"24 Hours at a Time" is *another* fantastic highlight. I can't exactly explain why, though. It's a fairly fast-paced country rocker, but... there's something special about it that makes it stand apart from the crowd. I think it's the line "Woman you're always on my mind, 24 hours at a time, somehow woman I'm hoping you feel the same" that really makes it attractive. Or perhaps the tasteful guitar jam at the end which immediately makes me think of a happy place is the reason for its ability to give me especially strong positive felings, I don't know.
"Fly Eagle Fly" ends the album on a fairly quiet note with a softly written track. It contains innocent lyrics and an attractive vocal melody, and not much else. Honestly it doesn't *need* anything else.
I really hope you pick up what I consider a masterpiece in southern rock. I've had people tell over the years how much they dislike the southern rock genre. It's honestly nearly impossible to hate THIS album, in my opinion. The arrangements are constantly beautiful and always played tastefully, and the amount of sincerity in both the vocal melodies and the lyrics is simply hard to ignore. Find a way to hear this album.
Such as... maybe the horse riding high in the mountains is an indication of the bands quick rise to stardom? Or maybe I'm thinking about it too hard and the album cover simply illustrates the beauty and colorful creativity that can be heard in the music.
A New Life is a minor masterpiece and REALLY shows just how much further the Marshall Tucker Band were willing to push the boundaries as far as how far the southern rock formula can go. This album is a drastic step forward from their self-titled debut in terms of songwriting and instrumental variety.
"You Ain't Foolin' Me" has a very good verse melody and chorus, but that's not *quite* what makes this song stand out so drastically. It's shortly after the 2 minute mark when the song REALLY takes off and confirms (to me, at least) that the Marshall Tucker Band are the real deal. The saxophone solo is incredibly melodic and perhaps this is a total coincidence, but the first few lines of the sax solo totally remind me of a Roxy Music song from their debut released back in 1972. From here, well, images of the album cover noticeably come to mind as the saxophone takes a sudden departure and a dreamy guitar solo elevates the greatness of the song to even higher heights. This instrumental middle section resembles *no* other southern rock band. Not the Allman Brothers Band or Lynyrd Skynyrd. It's completely unique.
If you enjoy the instrumental creativity in "You Ain't Foolin' Me" be prepared to have your socks totally knocked off upon experiencing "Southern Woman". What starts off as a highly memorable vocal melody suddenly (eventually- 3 minutes later) sends me into total, unexpected shock as a straight up saxophone solo makes a VERY surprising appearance. Unlike in the song I mention above, this particular sax jam actually *jams* for a minute or so, and it sounds completely different from anything any other southern band had ever attempted, before or since. It's flat out awesome. Perhaps it's inspired by Van Morrison's "Moondance" a little bit, but it's certainly no ripoff or anything.
The title song brings me to tears, seriously. I actually cried the first time I heard it... alright make that the second time (because I wasn't paying attention to it the first time, for some clueless reason on my part!) The verse melody is another quality piece of writing, the lyrics are touching and meaningful, but it's the flute jam and the gradual morph into an electric guitar jam that BLOWS MY EMOTIONS COMPLETELY AWAY! There's quite a few moments of this song that move me emotionally, but the jam takes the cake.
"24 Hours at a Time" is *another* fantastic highlight. I can't exactly explain why, though. It's a fairly fast-paced country rocker, but... there's something special about it that makes it stand apart from the crowd. I think it's the line "Woman you're always on my mind, 24 hours at a time, somehow woman I'm hoping you feel the same" that really makes it attractive. Or perhaps the tasteful guitar jam at the end which immediately makes me think of a happy place is the reason for its ability to give me especially strong positive felings, I don't know.
"Fly Eagle Fly" ends the album on a fairly quiet note with a softly written track. It contains innocent lyrics and an attractive vocal melody, and not much else. Honestly it doesn't *need* anything else.
I really hope you pick up what I consider a masterpiece in southern rock. I've had people tell over the years how much they dislike the southern rock genre. It's honestly nearly impossible to hate THIS album, in my opinion. The arrangements are constantly beautiful and always played tastefully, and the amount of sincerity in both the vocal melodies and the lyrics is simply hard to ignore. Find a way to hear this album.
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