Wrecking Ball- Emmylou Harris

Wrecking Ball

The main thing that has always been interesting about Emmylou Harris is her choice of material. She has written and co-written some good songs ("Boulder To Birmingham", for example), but succeeds primarily as an interpreter. This album can be singled out not only for its interpretive qualities, but for the incredible atmosphere created by producer Daniel Lanois. The recording has a similar dark, introspective ambience familiar from Lanois' work with Bob Dylan, and it works wonderfully with these songs.

There are no weak track on the disc. High quality songs by Neil Young and Bob Dylan ("Every Grain of Sand") are here along with lesser known gems by Lucinda Williams ("Sweet Old World") and Steve Earle ("Goodbye"). However, for this listener, the songs penned by Lanois himself are the real high points. All three are unforgettable. "Deeper Well", a collaboration with Harris, will haunt the listener long after a single hearing. These songs are nothing short of brilliant and deserve to be known by all interested in any kind of contemporary music.

Many of the songwriters featured on this recording participate in the performances as well (Dylan, is of course absent, but it is hard to imagine his song being any better than it is here).

An indispensible CD.

Graham Nash - Wild Tales

Wild Tales

My first review of a Graham Nash Recording.

Being a huge Neil Young-CSNY fan, I had bought Graham's first solo cd "Songs for Beginners" and was really surprised how great his solo cd was (you should check it out!!). However, I having recently purchased his 2nd solo cd "Wild Tales", I was literally blown away by the great, classic tracks on this masterpiece. Graham Nash doesn't have the super-genius of Neil Young, but he's essentially assembled Neil's "Harvest" band to create a wonderfully consistent and timeless piece of work. I would honestly say that virtually every song is a keeper on first listen (which is saying alot considering CSNY's sometimes spotty song selection). Just buy it NOW and crank it up you country rockers~

Eagles- Long Run

Promotional Picture

With the "Ole 55"

But this doesnt makes sense, the long run song was made without Leadon, Meisner.

This is the era of the Eagles that played that song.
with Schmit, on Bass, Walsh, Lead Guitar.

Manassas- Pieces

Pieces

After recording his second solo album, Stills formed Manassas in 1971 with a talented group of musicians that included Chris Hillman, a former member of the Byrds and Flying Burrito Brothers. Manassas released two albums, 1972's eponymous double-album debut and the 1973 follow-up, Down The Road. MANASSAS - PIECES features alternate versions of two songs from Down The Road: 'Do You Remember The Americans' and 'Lies' (featuring guitarist Joe Walsh). The collection also includes the legendary group's unreleased performances of 'Sugar Babe' and 'Word Game,' a pair of songs Stills recorded in 1971 for his second solo album. The remaining tracks include 'Like A Fox,' a song recorded with blues guitarist Bonnie Raitt on background vocals and the Latin-tinged 'Tan Sola Y Triste' (Spanish for 'So Alone and Sad'). 

Buffalo Springfield- Box set

Box Set

My first advice, is dont go and buy this, unless you are true fan and needs completion.

Two years. Three albums. A four-disc retrospective. It wouldn't seem possible to get a more comprehensive treatment of a band's career than that promised by Buffalo Springfield's unimaginitively titled BOX SET. But in fact the producers of this gorgeously packaged, extensively annotated and beautifully remastered misfire have achieved the impossible by crafting an anthology at once bloated and incomplete.

Far more legendary as the incubator of the careers of Stephen Stills, Neil Young and Richie Furay than for its own output - which included exactly one hit ("For What It's Worth") and a lot of highly influential but woefully underappreciated material besides - Buffalo Springfield could and should have had the mother of all box sets, one containing every note the band ever released as well as plenty of alternates, outtakes and demos. Instead, BOX SET gives us, in the course of its first three discs, all but FOUR of the group's released numbers (these being the original, seven-minute version of Stills' "Bluebird" as well as three tracks from the 1968 LAST TIME AROUND LP). Since none of the CDs runs much over an hour, this is absolutely inexcusable. Alternates and outtakes are fine; but when a band's entire catalogue could easily be fit on three discs, to have a handful of songs left out of a four-CD anthology is just...well, choose your favorite adjective.

Padding things out instead is a wealth of previously unreleased material, including arguably too many solo demos by Young and transitional recordings which document the Springfield's disintegration into its various member's subsequent careers. Much of this is great stuff, though some of it is rather difficult to call Buffalo Springfield.

The crowning irony, however, is disc four, whereon the first two Buffalo Springfield albums are presented in release order - even though every single one of these tracks with the sole exception (no pun intended) of "Mr. Soul" appears somewhere on the first three discs. This blatant bit of price-gouging, absurd enough in itself, is doubly awful in light of the tracks left missing from this "definitive" compilation.

Given that fully half the material on BOX SET consists of rarities, and that all three Springfield albums are easily and cheaply available on CD, this box is clearly aimed at hardcore fans - which is to say, people who want to hear everything. That we don't is, alas, a tragic blight on a potentially (and largely)wonderful collection of music.

Gene Clark - Gypsy Angel

Gypsy Angel

Gene Clark, legendary co-founder of the Byrds, died in 1991 at the young age of 46. After he left The Byrds, Gene had a distinguished solo career, creating great music but generating low sales. It appears that now he is begining to get the acclaim he deserves. These recordings are something of a miracle. Shortly before he died, he gave Carla Olson tapes of the first eight songs on this CD, for possible inclusion on the CD they were working on. These, and the the remaining four songs, were recorded by Gene in his own home, accompanying
himself on 12-string guitar, harmonica, and, on one song, by a friend playing slide guitar. These are either new songs, never before released in any form, or, in a few cases, such as "Gypsy Rider," different versions of songs Gene previously released. This is an excellent CD. It includes some of the best songs Gene ever wrote, such as "Mississippi Detention Camp," "Kathleen," and "Freedom Walk". It is Gene at his most intimate, very soulful, and displaying his deepest emotional concerns. To me, it is comparable to the best of Mickey Newbury or Guy Clark. A must buy for anyone who enjoys brilliant singing and songwritng.

John Fogerty - Blue Ridge Rangers Ride Again

The Blue Ridge Rangers Rides Again

Many folks forget that when the original album was released in 1973, it was not a John Fogerty album. The band was "The Blue Ridge Rangers"(no reference to Fogerty at all), the songs were all covers, and CCR was nowhere to be found. It was not promoted as a Fogerty project. I won't go into the well-known contract hassles and history of Fogerty, Fantasy and CCR, or why this was so. It really doesn't matter here. What does matter is that the original album was a brilliant effort entirely crafted by John Fogerty and it was clearly a love letter to the music that inspired him. Yet, when it was released, he was completely absent despite the fact that the record yielded two hit singles. No glory, no spotlight, nothing. The cover showed the band in silhouette standing on a ridge with the sun setting behind them. To make such an obviously personal record, a record that required an extraordinary effort in engineering and recording talent and technique, and then release it under the name of a fictitious band is hard to imagine even today.

What a record that first Blue Ridge Rangers album was. When I hear the loose gospel harmonies, accompanied by a tentatively rattling tamborine, at the beginning of "Workin' On A Building" I get goosebumps. This was not the era of ProTools and digital recording. This was John Fogerty going into the studio with tape and reel and creating an aural movie. All by himself he became a gospel choir, riffing and rolling, clapping and stomping. You close your eyes and you are in the dream. There is John, sweat and passion, harmonizing and jamming with himself on the resonator slide. It is an absolute masterpiece. Listen to John drag the beat in "Blue Yodel #4," listen to the Dixieland breakdown in the solo. Listen to the pedal steel and piano intro to "Please Help Me, I'm Falling" and you are belly-up-to-the bar in a dusty roadhouse calling for a cold beer and a shot. The original album is literally a one-man history lesson in American roots music, from string band, to gospel, to blues, to country.