Customer Reviews

Easter Tapes

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This album reveals how much Steve enjoyed performing to a live audience. Better yet, this album contains live recordings of a more intimate setting (i.e. a radio studio) without a typical audience applauding or shouting out requests.

If you want to hear some heavy picking from Steve, then this is the album for you. A lot of the tracks are available on other albums, however, they are not the live versions represented here. Some of my favorite tracks on this album include Video Tape, Big Iron, and 18 Yellow Roses. There's also a bonus 'hidden track' after the Runaway which definitely bring out Steve's spontenaity and love of performing live.

Simply put, buy this album.

A long, long time ago...in the olden days...in Old Town...I knew Steve Goodman...Steve was a friend of mine...and the Easter Tapes ARE Steve Goodman...you can buy it for the guitar work and not be disappointed...you can buy it for "Big Iron" alone and have a wide smile...or you can buy it to get to know Steve a little, and you will find a true friend.

For those of us who saw Steve Goodman perform live in the years before his demise from leukemia, this album is a treasure that reminds us how much fun he had in a live setting. Many songs on his long list of studio albums make clear his sense of humor, but only this type of album reveals all.

There must be more of this stuff in the vaults somewhere-I remember a wonderful PBS "SoundStage" with Steve, Arlo Guthrie, and Hoyt Axton in 1974 that was worth the price of admission for "Door Number Three" alone. Meantime, buy this and save it for an early Sunday morning, it's a good example of what Steve did best. Intimate, quietly inventive and delightful at times, definitive "Video Tape" and "Somebody Else's Troubles", and the early morning ambiance can't be beat. Special blessings to Vin Scelsa for reassembling it and the fine liner notes, but he should also be throttled for not continuing the Easter morning tradition with Goodman while he could.

This CD captures the person Steve Goodman was. Was a big fan of him and WNEW-FM at the time. Miss the man and the radio of the 70s. This CD does caputure the time. If you like Steve's music get this "live" CD. Well worth the cost-priceless!

There is no summary description of this CD on Amazon.com, so first know that these recordings are taken from a series of Easter morning live-radio performances that Steve did with Vin Scelsa on WNEW-FM in the `70s. It doesn't hurt that Vin Scelsa was my favorite DJ growing up, the most tasteful of a great group of DJs at the old WNEW-FM.

There is some dialogue and lots of great tunes. Steve Goodman had so much fun anytime he was singing, he often laughed in mid-song. It sounded as if there was nothing he'd rather be doing, the feeling was always contagious, and these recordings capture all of that. You feel like it is just the 3 of you together in the room having a great time. It is a great selection of songs, and Steve's guitar work is exceptional; much, much more than his usual live recordings, where he sometimes seems to get so carried away he simply forgets to strum and just drums on his guitar instead. Be sure to catch the secret extra song at the end of the CD, it's one of the best, and he puts Vin Scelsa on the spot.