Richard Betts- Highway Call

Highway Call

This is the album that bridged the boundaries between country, rock, blue-grass and jazz in the most perfectly realized way possible. In the final analysis, it's the special vibe of this album that sets it apart from other blue-grass/rock fusion albums. What Betts and gang seem to be wordlessly communicating as a subtext to all the music is a bond between different generations of musicians from the South that's created solely from their dedication to being free spirits no matter what different paths they might have taken to get there. This is not just a foot-stomping backwoods party album. There's a completely laid-back lack of rigidity, a beautiful melodicism and deep romanticism that could only come from Betts' leadership and the hippie legacy he brings from the Allman Brothers Band. There's philosophy and deep meditation behind this music that communicates very intensely even if it was only 'the spirit of the times' that was subconsciously affecting the proceedings.

The remastered album sounds fantastic. I played this one back to back with Greg Allman's classic "Laid Back" (remastered by the same people and released at the same time as the "Highway Call" remaster here) and the recording quality and production and the way the remastering brings it out on both just blew me away. I wonder if the musicians heard themselves sound so good on the studio playback monitors back then! If you want to be even more impressed, put some mikro-smooth polish from mapleshade audio products on the CD to eliminate laser jitter and you will be knocked out of your seat at how great the tones created by these master musicians 33 years ago sound today.