Customer Reviews

Back Home Again

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4 star:		(2)
3 star:		(1)
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1 star:		(1)

 

 

This is one of those albums that we had on 8-track as a little kid. It seemed that most people had a John Denver 8-track back in the 70's! Every track on this album is a classic, the remastering is pristine. The hits from the album were "Annie's Song" (most often thought of as "You Fill Up My Senses"), "Grandma's Feather Bed", "Back Home Again" and "Thank God I'm A Country Boy". My favorite tracks though are "Matthew", "Eclipse" and "This Old Guitar". Both "Matthew" and "This Old Guitar" are added on as bonus tracks in alternate versions. The alternate of "Guitar" sounds more intimate, "Matthew" has a fuller sound. A classic album from the 70's and for me anyway it brings back fond childhood memories.

John never liked to be typecast but he was a country boy at heart and it was never more obvious than in this album. Whatever you may think of his other albums, this album is country. It was his best-selling album and it contains his best-selling single, Annie's song, and my favorite song of his, Back home again, together with many other classic songs.

Annie's song was a number one pop hit in both Britain and America. John had many pop hits in America but he never had another solo hit in the UK and only had one other (minor) UK hit via a duet recording (with Placido Domingo) of Perhaps love.

The ultimate homecoming song, Back home again is one of my all-time favorite songs. Several country singers covered it although those covers are now mostly hard to find. I particularly like Dottie West's version though the chances of that ever becoming available on CD seem remote. But John's own version is outstanding and was a huge American pop hit.

A live version of Thank God I'm a country boy provided John with another American number one pop hit, but it is the original studio version that you will find on this album. Grandma's feather bed is a fun song about childhood memories. Other outstanding songs include Sweet surrender, Eclipse and This old guitar, but every song here is brilliant.

This new versions makes the album sound better than ever. The two bonus tracks are alternate versions of songs that were already part of the main album. While they were doing this, they could have included the single version of Thank God I'm a country boy - they didn't, but that's a minor quibble.

This was one of the first albums I ever bought when I started collecting records on vinyl and it remains one of my favorite albums of all time.

I grew up listening to this album on our 8 track player back in the 70's. It is just as wonderful as I remember it, minus the awful 8 track changing "ker-chunks" in the middle of songs . Brings back happy memories of my childhood. I own many John Denver CDs and this one is my absolute favorite and I believe is his very best. No John Denver fan will be disappointed with this one.

To hear it from the "hip" music critics of the press over the decades, you'd think John Denver was a pansy, that he never wrote anything of the kind of significance that would have merited a place in "their" world. He was a product of the same Greenwich Village folk music scene of the 1960s that gave us Dylan, Joan Baez, and Peter, Paul, and Mary (who would turn Denver's "Leaving On A Jet Plane" into a #1 hit in December 1969); but instead of writing songs about protest, revolution, and the like, he wrote songs about life, love, family, and nature. So at a time when young people were railing against anything "establishment", Denver chose to talk about the land.

So much for those "hip" critics, of course, because the man clearly touched the lives of millions who were looking for a way back to the basics, a common theme of country, folk, and rock artists in the 1970s. And all of those elements found their way into BACK HOME AGAIN, the biggest-selling studio album of Denver's career. Denver can be accused of being somewhat corny and cliched, of course ("Grandma's Feather Bed"), and a good deal of BACK HOME AGAIN is folk/country in nature, even occasionally bluegrass ("Thank God I'm A Country Boy", in its original studio version), having little appeal to the Nashville crowd of the time, and not quite rock-orientated enough even for fans of the Eagles or Linda Ronstadt.

But BACK HOME AGAIN makes it clear that Denver's worldwide success was no accident. "Annie's Song", about his then-wife, was a massive #1 hit in the summer of 1974 (Denver's biggest hit single); the title track, which has reportedly recently been covered by Trisha Yearwood, was a big #5 hit in October 1974; and "Sweet Surrender", thanks to its use in the Disney film THE BEARS AND I, hit the Top 15 at the start of 1975.

The critics may keep saying that the man, whom we tragically lost way too soon in 1997, will never be hip, but fans of his, and lovers of the folk/country style that he personified clearly know otherwise. John Denver is a national treasure; and BACK HOME AGAIN is crystal-clear proof of that.

When this album, the best and most consistent in John Denver's career, was released, I was just getting hooked on Southern Rock. And though compared to The Allman Brothers Band or Lynyrd Skynyrd, or even The Marshall Tucker Band or CDB, Denver came off as naive and goofy, perhaps even limp-wristed, his mastery of his material and his joy at presenting it made me brave enough to call upon friends to hear this album following, say, ZZ Top's Tres Hombres. Even while promoting Waylon's Dreaming My Dreams and Willie's Red-Headed Stranger, I remained a devoted fan of Back Home Again.

If I were to be able to choose 60 songs for a 3-disc John Denver anthology, I would select 9 from the Back Home again album: the title cut, 'Grandma's Feather Bed,' 'Matthew,' 'Thank God I'm a Country Boy,' 'The Music is You,' 'Annie's Song,' 'Eclipse,' 'Sweet Surrender,' and 'This Old Guitar.' Yes, three-fourths of this album is among the best 60 songs of John Denver's career, and the remaining three songs on the album aint chopped liver.

If you wish to own only 1 John Denver album, you should purchase Back Home Again rather than John Denver's Greatest Hits or even Definitive All-Time Greatest Hits.

The bonus track alternate versions of 'Matthew' and 'This Old Guitar' will be welcomed by anyone who loves those excellent songs.

I listened to this album about 40,000 times a million years ago when I was young and confused about the unfamiliar mysterious forces wreaking their havoc within me. I grew up in a small emerging city on the high plains of Colorado, and even there, John Denver wasn't cool. He's just obviously not sophisticated. His life was all messed up. His chord progressions are simplistic. I know all that. They didn't even want him at Woodstock, where you think they'd have some tolerance for a grown man who sings with the same naïve innocence that I had at 13. So I went to get my graduate degree from the flashy East Coast university, and in the intervening years I've become acquainted with concert violinists and proteges of the jazz greats. I wouldn't want to live in a world which had never had a John Coltrane or a Beethoven.

But it just has to be said that "Annie's Song" and "This Old Guitar" all these many years later still have real power over my soul.

Finally we have one of John Denver's best albums remastered and sounding fantastic! Although this album came at the height of John's success, it was never one of my favorites. That goes to "Rocky Mountain High", "Farewell Andromeda" and "I Want to Live", which I'm hoping will all be remastered soon. After hearing this freshly remastered version though, I must say that this is one of John's finer efforts. Although a bit to much country seeps into some of the song's there are many gems to be found. Standout tracks include "Eclipse", "Cool an Green an Shady", and "Matthew". I can remember seeing John perform the songs on this album at the Forum in L.A. on his 74 U.S. tour and the memory is something I will always treasure. If you'r a fan then by all means buy this newly remastered CD and enjoy John's music sounding better than it did way back in 74. If you'r a casual fan then buy the newly remastered "Greatest Hits" and this one together.

I remember having this LP Album in the 70's and was very happy to have it on CD with some of my very favorite John Denver songs - especially the song "Matthew", which I haven't been able to find on other John Denver CD's. This music brings back lots of good memories.

My mom had this album on vinyl. She later bought it on cassette and she played it in the car all the time. Later I bought my own copy on tape. I wore that out during college and later bought the CD.

Every song on this album is a classic and if you are looking for an album to play while driving along on a rainy day you can stop looking right now.

You can feel the emotion poured into ever lyric. Every song is as sincere as you can get.

I love this album and I'll never be without a copy!

Perhaps I'm a bit biased, since I have listened to and loved John Denver songs since the early 70's, but I love this album. I originally bought it as a vinyl record, and finally decided to upgrade to CD. Denver's songs are tailor-made for the person who wants to sit back and think about all that is beautiful and just enjoy music; if you're looking for head-banging anger and rage, Denver is not the artist for you. If you like the idea of country music with a touch of liberal love and peace, then this is the album for you. Also, there is more to this album than just the songs that made the Top 40; the other songs are just as beautiful...Of course, "Annie's Song" is my favorite.