Customer Reviews

Baxter Black's NPR CDs

5 star:		(4)
4 star:		(1)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

I received this CD set for my birthday after being a fan of Baxter Black for years on NPR. I have enjoyed the CD's greatly. The tracks range from hilarious to exuberant to deeply touching. Some tracks, of course, are a little better than others. but I have gotten so much enjoyment from these discs. I heartily recommend them to anyone who has enjoyed listening to Baxter Black on the radio or to anyone who enjoys humor and stories about real people with a western flavor.

Baxter Black is kind of the Garrison Keillor of Western humor, a man in a cowboy hat whose country sensibility crosses over to the mainstream - if urban listeners to NPR count as part of the mainstream. Western humor is often self-deprecating and relishes irones, but under it there is a heartfelt love of the cowboy way and the vanishing values that the cowboy represents - self-reliance, respect for the land, hard work, honesty, fearlessness, the whole code of the West. Black's devotion to those values seems often a winking one. While his wit and cleverness are unparalleled, and his knowledge of his subject matter as a "large animal veterinarian" is unimpeachable, the resonance for me is too often with the funny bone and not the heart.

While I'll be the first to champion Black's "Hey, Cowboy, Wanna Get Lucky" as a great comic novel, the material on this double CD seems of a different kind. The humor is often more like clowning, and the lapses into pure sentiment, such as the long story poem "He Sang, 'Little Joe the Wrangler'" go for broke, but will seem too far over the top for some listeners. While Black is certainly among the best for cowboy humor and cowboy poetry, this recording lacks the depth of a Wally McRae or Paul Zarzyski, whose work seems more loyal to Elko than NPR.

We love Baxter Black but sometimes get kind of tired of cowboy poetry. However, this CD was a welcome change as it's more like listening to Baxter's weekly columns or the bits he does on RFD TV. Great messages and humor throughout, and that man does have a way with words and the rural lifestyle. We put it in the car's CD player on a long trip and hated to see the trip end before the CD did.

Very disappointing CD--Dry, repetitive, and hard to believe, boring.
There is much better Baxter available on his self produced live CD's.
Buy them and by all means, see him in person.

My husband, a long-time Baxter Black fan, spends more time in his truck listening to the radio than sitting in a chair reading. The CD version of Black's book was the perfect gift. He giggles while he tries to relate a tale he has just heard, then gives up and puts the CD in a player in the house so I can listen. Hearing the stories in Baxter's familiar, ironic drawl is as delightful as listening to the weaving of the tale.

...to love Baxter Black. His commentaries make horsesense to city folk too. Seriously, if you love good story tellers, then you need to include the wisdom of Mr. Black in your circle of tellers! He will make you think, laugh and wish you had been the one to "say that"!