Another sonic spectacular from the Everest catalog, this pairing of Shostakovich’s 9th Symphony, completed in 1945, with Prokofiev’s score for the 1933 film “Lieutenant Kije,” offers rich, warm orchestral colors, remarkable transparency and air, and dynamic contrasts that mimic what one hears in a good concert hall.

If there’s to be a second blues revival after the first one in the early ‘60s that led to the “rediscovery” of neglected artists like Son House and even Robert Johnson, the first great analog revival occurring right now will lead the way.

It’s difficult to believe now, but by the end of the 1950’s artists like Johnson, Son House, and even Muddy Waters had been all but abandoned by American Negroes and had never had much exposure at all among white, suburban baby booming teenagers.

If you’re one of those who doesn’t “get” Brothers In Arms, originally issued in 1985, Robert Sandell’s liner notes accompanying this meticulously produced double 180g LP reissue provide a plausible, if not entirely believable explanation for its original and continued popularity.

While many hear it as bland studio dross, Sandell claims Brother In Arms was, in fact, a “protest” album—railing against synth-pop “hair” bands with a potent mix of reflective “roots rock” and somber reflection.

Twelve Broadway chestnuts from the days when Broadway shows were produced for New York sensibilities instead of for the midwest bus-hoards. Nothing poisonal, mind you, but Broadway today is aimed at tourists, not New Yawkers.



Whomever it’s aimed at, comb through the pseudo-operatic drek passing for “show tunes” today in most of the shows on the “Great White Way”and you wouldn’t add up to an album’s worth of standards coverable by the likes of Mel Tormé, speaking which there’s no one like the likes of Mel Tormé either!

Bongos and an A-bomb sound effect commence “No Man Can Find The War,” the dramatic opening tune on Tim Buckley’s second Elektra LP, recorded in Los Angeles, June of 1967 as the war in Vietnam burned itself into the American psyche. An anti-war song, like so many others of the time, it speaks to the futility of war and look where we are almost forty years hence.

Decide for yourself whether The Lovin’ Spoonful took their name from Mississippi John Hurt’s “Coffee Blues” (not to mention the tune for “Darlin’ Companion”) but fans of Taj Mahal will have no doubts about this gentle soul’s influence on Taj when you hear this earlier take on “Corrina, Corrina” and compare it to Taj’s on The Natch’l Blues (CS9698).

Subtlety was not in Neil Young’s game plan when he sat down to write the tunes here, probably in a burst of creative energy born of frustration with the war in Iraq and other Bush administration activities over the past few years. Young’s moved quite a ways since his romance with the Reagan administration.



Look, conservatism’s appeal to the individual spirit is both laudable and attractive. It sucked me in to the Goldwater movement and Barry’s still a personal hero of mine. Too bad what he started has been hijacked by frauds.

Johnny Cash’s final album is a tender and moving tribute to the resilience of the human spirit. The power and fascination of folk music is that the story is in the telling not in the technique.



Late in his life, and suffering from physical infirmity, Cash connects through sheer will power, evinced only in the intensity of the communication. With Cash, the process never showed: not in his youth, not on his final recordings. He makes it sound easy, though of course it could not have been early on and especially at the end.

This superbly recorded, meticulously produced collaboration reminds me of an expanded version of Roy Rogers’ and Dale Evans’ “Happy Trails.” It’s packed with nostalgia and exudes a wistful, “see you around” vibe that at times gets downright suffocating.