Customer Reviews

Clang of the Yankee Reaper

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

 

 

The title cut stands far above the rest of the album, and alone makes it a must-have for lovers of sophisticated musical Americana a la Randy Newman's 19th-century period pieces...a lushly nostagic, beautifully written and arranged bit of musical Americana, with superbly clever lyrics. The remaining cuts are fun, well-chosen calypso and pop covers, but none improve on the original versions. I think Song Cycle and Jump! are his two best albums, and two of the greatest pop albums ever recorded. Live at the Ash Grove is well worth having, Discover America offers competent but non-essential covers of more calypso and pop tunes, and Orange Crate Art and Tokyo Rose elicit respect for their craft and intelligence rather than a strong emotional response.

Van Dyke Parks is best known for his work with Brian Wilson on the aborted 'Smile' project, but his solo albums are are rewarding as anything his did with Wilson. 'Clang Of The Yankee Reaper' is a tribute to the West Indies, full of calypso rhythms, steel drums, great arrangements and wonderful songs.

Reading the sleeve notes, it appears that Parks, a great arranger and songwriter, neither arranged nor wrote any of these songs! That doesn't stop it being as great a CD as his self-composed classic, 'Song Cycle'.

Timeless and brilliant.

This is one of the most energetic albums ever made. You can't just stand still listening to these caribean and latin rhythms. A surprise in the end: Canon actually isn't Pachelbel's famous canon but a samba version of Ein feste Burg ist unser Gott, a hymn by Martin Luther.

This was Van Dyke Parks' third album. The music is played in a calypso style. Oddly enough, even though Parks is more known as a composer than a performer, he only co-wrote one of the songs here. But the album is still pleasant enough, even if it is a bit on the short side, with a 30 minute running time.

Only one song from this album was written by Van Dyke Parks: "The Clang of the Yankee Reaper" (which is not coincidentally the highlight of the album). However, because of his unique arrangements, and distinct voice (this is his last album when it still sounds its finest), his name is all over the other songs of this album; at times it calls to mind "Discover America", with the steel band on several songs, other times, like on the title track, it is a bit closer to "Song Cycle", but has a distinct sound from both of them, though still clearly by the same artist. Though I would recommend that you buy "Song Cycle" or "Discover America" before this album, this is not inferior to either.

How much trouble would it be for someone to write a short blurb about the contents of this version of Clang? For the uninformed, it has 2 bonus tracks (both of Amazing Grace) which time in at less than 3 minutes total. That's a pretty hefty premium for 2 tracks, wouldn't you say? There will be those AIG employees and the like that won't mind shelling out $[...] bucks from their bonus checks but probably not too many of the rest of us. Memo to Mr. Bezos...if you want to move this high priced inventory, hire someone to promote the sale by writing a brief description and a track listing. There are people in this country that could use the work. DUH!!!