Customer Reviews

The Best of Tracy Nelson/Mother Earth

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Life is full of mysteries. Janis Joplin becomes a musical icon. Tracy Nelson has always been something of an unknown. Yet Tracy possessed a far warmer, flexible, and expressive voice than Janis, which, as good as it was, always did pretty much the same thing.

Tracy Nelson fans are often jealous of Janis Joplin's legend. On numerous occasions I have put "Down So Low" on to play to unsuspecting and unitiated friends. I refuse to tell them who it is, and invariably they will ask by the end of the song, "Is that Janis Joplin?"

This album is marvelous testimony to just how good Tracy Nelson is. I do have a slight bone to pick with it. The title is a bit misleading: Mother Earth had many very, very good songs that featured other people singing lead than Tracy Nelson, and all of those songs were omitted.

I think there are several reasons one can point to for Tracy Nelson's failure to become as large a legend as Janis Joplin. One is pointed to by Al Kooper in the liner notes accompanying the CD: she isn't easy to categorize. Is she rock? Folk? Blues? Country? I bought my copy at Tower Records, and they keep the album in Folk. I would have put it in Rock, but anyone will have to acknowledge that she defies categories.

Another reason that Tracy Nelson has never been as widely acknowledged as she deserves is ironically because she did one song that was so stunning, so overwhelming, that all her other excellent work suffers by comparison. The song is, of course, "Down So Low." In my estimation, this song and Tracy's performance of it is one of the staggering achievements of the rock era. Greil Marcus once wrote that in this song Tracy Nelson goes to places that Janis Joplin only dreamed about. The song is so extraordinary that the album cover reads "The Best of Tracy Nelson/Mother Earth" followed by the words "Featuring Down So Low." And the entire text on the back of the CD does nothing but talk abou the song. In a way, this song destroyed her career, because it is such an amazing song and performance, that everything else in anyone's career is going to be a disappointment.

Let me try to get at the point another way. Aretha Franklin, John Lennon, Jagger/Richards, Bob Dylan. These folks belong to the highest pinnacle of rock and roll success. They produced an enormous amount of work that is the standard by which everything else in rock is measured. Other performers can be often excellent, but they really don't come up to that standard. Sheryl Crow is great, but she isn't Bob Dylan. Ever. But in "Down So Low," Tracy Nelson did a song that was so great that only occasionally have the greatest figures in the history of rock and roll done as well. Yet her other work is not up to the level of that song.

So, there are two reasons to get this album. One is to get familiar with one of the very greatest singers our country has produced in the last forty years. The other is to get your very own copy of one of the truly transcendant moments in the history of rock: "Down So Low."

Back in the day, the Mother Earth album 'Living With the Animals' rarely left record player for more than a day - but it was somewhat a difficult record to listen to, because I had to keep jumping up to skip tracks. The album was schizophrenic in the extreme with a split personality that was sometimes Tracy Nelson country-gospel-influenced blues and the rest of the time so rather uninspired pop-rock by the band's guitarist. I loved, loved, loved the former, and felt rather ambivalent about the latter. This album contains only the former.

There is so much good material here I don't know where to begin. The album contains almost all the Tracy-led cuts from 'Living With the Animals' and that is worth the price of admission. The two cuts with Mike Bloomfield (Butterfield Blues Band, Super Sessions) guesting contain some of his very best pure blues playing. There are constants in the quality of Tracy's voice, and in the country-gospel-blues blend that shapes the sound of all the material. Also, there is much pleasure to be found in hearing the improvement and changes that time brought to her vocal and keyboard performances, since the album is reasonably chronological. Finally, the notes, by Al Kooper, are detailed and informative.

I thoroughly enjoy this compilation, listen to it all the time (again, 30 years later) and constantly astound friends who wonder how they could have overlooked such an impressive artist all this time

The world of hip was enthralled in 1969 by the Byrds' "Sweetheart of the Rodeo" and Bob Dylan's"Nashville Skyline" records from Nashville. Up North nobody bought 'em, but I did. And so did the rest of the Buffalo Springfield, Byrds, Moby Grape, Incredible String Band, Dillards, Bill Monroe painfully hip yeah it's OK to be white and thinking about Mama, one too many flashback crowd. But Tracy Nelson, Scotty Moore, Pete Drake, Ben Keith, D.J. and the Jordanaires trumped everybody. In retrospect it was kind of easy, considering the woman singer happens to be one of the 10 greatest singers in the history of POPular music. Hyperbole? Listen. There are a precious few "perfect" albums of pop music. Two or three by the Beatles, one by Marvin Gaye, two or three by Frank Sinatra, two by Ray Charles and the odd one on (Moby Grape's first, name your favorite here ______) But THIS is more than arguably the single greatest country music record ever recorded by a woman singer. But anybody in that very late 1960's early 70's zeitgeist, understands perfectly that one of the greatest blues singers of all time. with ears a mile wide and the ability to sing anything written by Sammy Khan or George Gershwin, could pull this off. And she did.

How grateful I am to those at Warner Brothers/Reprise for doing this well-deserved compilation for Tracy Nelson, and her remarkable work with Mother Earth, her band. A totally and thoroughly satisfying collection of blues originals and interpretations, it really doesn't get better than this - but this is in some ways beyond many a blues album, it has real spiritual power, too. Learn how majestic American music can be - with every word I can try to convince you with, you cannot go wrong in any way with this album, and you'll be richly rewarded with perhaps one of the best possible investments of your entertainment dollar here, and few of my other well-loved CD's in my large collection are of the rank of this well-made wonder, too much for words to say. Prepare to be totally stunned by this if you've never heard her. Thank-you for your vision, Tracy.

I own this CD and I like it. I like it because it has several cuts from the classic '68 LP by Mother Earth, "Living With the Animals." With CDs clocking in a 79 minutes, couldn'd we have had the whole album and not just teasting snippets? Man, I still remember vividly the opening riffs to "Living With the Animals." This CD has some good stuff from that album on it, but that albmum is like Abbey Road. You don't pick and choose. You judge it in its entirety. It was a great, great, great album and I sure hope that some day Mercury, Rhino, Sundazed or somebody will put it out on CD. If so, I promise to buy five copies!!!!

A buddy of mine bought a copy of "Living With the Animals" in the late sixties, then I got a copy of "Bring Me Home" a few years later. With "Seven Bridges Road" featuring a down home mysticism and some of the best dobro work ever recorded, the deeply soulful "Tonight, the Shy's About to Cry" and a stand up version of Boz's "I'll Be Long Gone", it was played into vinyl oblivion. I NEVER understood why this superb artist remained so obscure. Sure, popular stardom is a hit and miss thing - look how long Bonnie Raitt made great music before "Nick of Time" - but why weren't the critics all over this lady? Reprise has put together a superb collection, adding a number of cuts from albums other than my own two favorites. Most notable of those are the marvelous country blues harmony behind her deep, true-alto voice on "Tennessee Blues" and the subtly nuanced "Thinking of You". There's not a weak cut in the collection and a number of songs you just have to play over, immediately, wondering why they're not on everyone's all-time-greatest lists. Buy this CD.

I have literally been looking for music by Tracy for over 25 years. She was popular in the Phila. area in the late 60's/early 70's as I recall. At that time, I foolishly spent my few dollars on albums that I seldom listen to now, but "Down So Low", and "The Sky's About to Cry" have stuck in my memory all this time. My very recent intro to the Internet has finally allowed me to find these songs through Amazon.com.

When this "best of" album came out on CD in the mid-90s, my first reaction was "Hallelujah! Finally, some of this classic Mother Earth material on CD." It seemed like a mini-miracle, and considering that there had been NO Tracy Nelson/Mother Earth material on CD at all up til then (and that some more current solo stuff had only just started surfacing on the independent Rounder label), it seemed like a something of a godsend.

But then a shadow of a doubt set in. Did this mean that this Tracy-oriented CD would be the sole Mother Earth stuff that would ever make it to CD format. Was there no hope that group efforts (featuring the whole array of singers--Powell St. John, Rev. Gary Stallings, even humble ole Bob Arthur) would never see the light of day on CD?

Tracy Nelson was ALWAYS the vocal star of Mother Earth, BUT St. John's delightfully quirky songs and low-key vocals were also highlights of the band's two initial (and grossly under-recognized) albums LIVING WITH THE ANIMALS and MAKE A JOYFUL NOISE. That second album was also spiced up by Rev. Stallings soulful contributions. Like Big Brother, Jefferson Airplane and other hippie bands, there was a communal spirit to those early albums, which actually enhanced (and never detracted) from the recognition of the outsized talent of their women singers.

But you know, time has a way of bringing out all good things (or at least bringing out all good things on CD). If Warners themselves saw no percentage in releasing the greater part of the Mother Earth catalogue, at least a decade or so after the release of this collection, they agreed to license the original material to an independent label based in my own stomping grounds of Upsate NY. Wounded Bird records has released the entire catalogue of Tracy Nelson/Mother Earth albums that had appeared on both Mercury and Warners.

So now you have a choice. I can't say what's right for any individual listener, but I am such a huge fan of this remarkable (and undeservedly obscure) singer that I would have to say that if you can even begin to afford it, you will benefit most from buying the original, group efforts. They will give you a much better feel for what this band was all about.

However, THE BEST OF TN/ME is still a solid overview and a great introduction to Tracy's early classic work. I can't argue in theory with an "all Tracy" format, since before the CD was released, I had made my own personal "best of" tapes myself--and the selections mirrored the songs included here to an astonishing degree.

I did always have one major quibble with this set, however. It has always seemed ALL WRONG to me open the album with Tracy's classic (some would say "signature") song, "Down So Low." I have seen Tracy perform live dozens of times, and never once did she open with that song. It's one you want to save a bit, and spring on the listener (live or on record) after having won 'em over with equally powerful--but not quite so emotionally devastating--fare. On the original LIVING WITH THE ANIMALS album, it closed side one, and that seemed to be a perfect spot for it. Back in the vinyl days, you had something of a breather between this astonishing track and the next song (or if you were an album "stacker" between it and somebody else's record). If you had any kind of soul at all, believe me, you needed that break.

Here "DSL" seems almost overly hasty, like the producers are too eager to convince the listener of Tracy's greatness. Now there's not a bad track on the record, and there are many astonishing moments that, to my mind, equal that of "Down So Low." But pacing is everything, and even in this age of short attention spans and random select programming on DVDs, I would STILL want to start this record on a more subdued, less torchy note.

I don't actually envy the producers of this album the task of having to narrow down Tracy Nelson's early catalogue into even a tentative "best of" roster. To me, it's inexplicable that they left off two of the band's fourth albums most rousing number, the gospel flavored "Deliver Me" and "Bring Me Home" (heck that latter selection was the TITLE track), but something had to be left out.

All the more reason, though, to use this record as an introduction to the early works of a truly great singer, but to hasten to invest in the full catalogue as soon as you can thereafter. (You can then pass on the "best of" package to a deserving friend or donate it to your local library). You can scarcely go wrong with any of the available product. She's that good.

I heard an interview with Tracy Nelson on NPR, with short excerpts from some of her songs included. I'd never heard of her, but loved her voice, so I located her on the internet and ordered three of her CDs. I love them! Her low, mellow voice is perfect when she sings the blues, and just as good when she does country!

I guess I was too busy raising a family to pay attention to Tracy Nelson or her group, Mother Earth, way back then. But I sure enjoy her now!

I don't know about the group Mother Earth and have never heard them. I heard Tracy Nelson sing the song "Mother Earth" on my local public radio, loved it and wanted to learn more about the song and the artist. So I took a chance and ordered this CD--WOW! There are few female vocalists I like who have the chops and soul and "guts" to put out an album where I like the whole thing instead of just a song or two. This has 17 tracks, quite amazing in itself, and almost all of them are deeply moving, original and very soulful renditions. Get this album if you like thoughtful, well crafted blues, you just can't go wrong with this collection and Tracy's voice. Classic, classic, classic.