Customer Reviews

Best Of Eric Andersen

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

 

 

I'm in the minority on this one, but I prefer Eric Andersen's early coffeehouse sound. His signature song has always been "Thirsty Boots". Look up most early various artists folk collections and you'll find the classic "Violets Of Dawn". The rest of these songs are also enjoyable with Eric singing solidly with a full band. Maybe the majority prefer "Blue River", but "The Best Of" is definitely top two. This is a good example where simple makes for outstanding.

This album is controversial because it features re-recordings of some of this Greenwich Village folkie's best material, made with larger arrangements and orchestrations that sometimes blot out the gentle, quavering quality of his original acoustic recordings. Still, Andersen was one of the most unique voices of the early '60s folk scene and even in altered form, his songs are quite effective. (Besides, didn't *he* make the alterations? So get over it!) It is lamentable that there doesn't seem to be a comparable "best-of" of his earlier recordings, but even with the goofy bells and string arrangements, "My Land" is still a great patriotic anthem, and "Thirsty Boots" is still a great Woody Guthrie imitation. Worth checking out

Good solid folk albumn. It's a good lead in to his current work. His later and current stuff is better If you can find "Ghost's on the Road" get it!!

I also prefer the early Andersen nd that rich voice and guitar looming thru the open sonic air. I miss it.

In the great swirl that was the folk music revival movement of the early 1960's a number of new voices were heard that created their own folk expression and were not as dependent on the traditional works of collective political struggle or social commentary associated with the likes of the Weavers, Pete Seeger or Woody Guthrie. Although Eric Andersen was a product of the intense Cambridge folk scene and knew and played with many of the stars of that scene he had a distinctive niche in that he performed mainly his own his music and his subject matter tended toward the very personal. It was only political in the most general sense that he, like the others, was breaking away from Tin Pan Alley to express his sentiments.

That said, this greatest hits compilation is almost exclusively made up of songs that he wrote in the 1960's- the most productive period of his career. I have seen some of his more recent performances and listened to his later work and nothing compares with the work of this period. Such tunes of personal sorrow and anger as Florentine and Sheila (not included here) and well as the classic Violets of Dawn and Leaving You come from this period. In short, one has to listen to (and read) the lyrics of this singer/ song writer from this time to get a real feel for his work. But if you want to take a trip back to a time when a serious argument could, and was made, that the personal was political and that folk music was, above all, about expressing the seemingly eternal notions of the complexities of love and loss then this is a part of the archives.

This album does not deserve the tittle. If you want to listen to Eric's best songs, find some of his solos. Eric is at his best when only he and himself plays the guitar (and harmonica) and sings. Only in that way can you feel the charm of his voice! You can Testify it by listening to "Boot of Blue" and "Come to My Bedside" in the album THE ORIGINAL NEW FOLKS.

I am not from this era, but I love good folk music and Eric Andersen has produced some great stuff over the years, but this is not his best. Yes, the songs are good, but they are "overproduced". If you are looking to get introduced to Eric or looking to catch up on his music, then I would recommend 'Bout Changes and Things. Many of the songs overlap from the two albums, but the versions on 'Bout Changes are more folkie, finding just Eric and his guitar. He may not be the best guitarist or vocalist, but he is definitely worth having in your collection.