Customer Reviews

Dear Mr. Fantasy Featuring the Music of Jim Capaldi and Traffic

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

 

 

This 2-CD set is a fantastic auditory experience, thanks in part to the wonderfully rich acoustics of the Roadhouse. Jim Capaldi's peers and admirers provide a musical tribute that feels almost more like a journey. From Paul Weller's lilting and melodic opener, "Paper Sun," to Dennis Locorriere's magical and bassy "Elixir of Life," to brother Phil's "Gifts of Unknown Things," and many, many more tracks, this wonderfully captured concert is a real turn-on. You'll want to replay it over and over again.

An amazing congregation of artists touchingly perform here an exquisite set of classic (and lesser known) songs. Although Joe Walsh sounds somewhat aged, his emotions are heartfelt; Steve Winwood, on the other hand, sounds the same as ever, particularly on "Light up or Leave Me Alone." Yusuf Islam's performance, although beautiful vocally, is perhaps the least polished (in all fairness he had only recently dipped his toe back into pop performing), yet his appearance is nonetheless unparalleled. Perhaps the most remarkable aspect of this CD (and concert) is the simultaneous appearance of my two favourite artists: Yusuf Islam and Pete Townshend. I've closely followed the careers of both for years and to my knowledge this is the ONLY instance (venue, recording, published work, or otherwise), where the two have EVER appeared together, despite often being linked to mutual colleagues. So that makes the concert particularly special to me. Pete Townshend's "No Face, No Name, No Number" is tear-jerkingly beautiful and perhaps the most acoustic and barest performance of the evening. Yusuf's pick, "Man with No Country," (which he embellishes with bars of "Wild World") seems as much a reflection of his own life. Instrumentally this entire concert is delectable: the bass is rousing, the keyboards are cool, the horns are groovy; everyone's voices are great to hear, too.

The CD booklet contains tributary remarks by the performers, each memorializing Jim Capaldi in his own way; these are comments you won't read anywhere else. But they all agree that Jim was a gentle, rare, and gifted musical soul. This concert did him justice in much the same way that the Concert for George (Harrison) honored him. This CD is a worthy substitute for a concert many of us did not have the good fortune to attend.

This CD set is about 110 minutes long. The sound quality is pretty good, with little annoying audience noise. It comes with a nice 16 page booklet with printing that is too small to read. The concert video is available in DVD.

This is one of those fun and interesting one off projects. There is a backup band hosting a number of guest stars (you can read who above).

The backup band is excellent, which is unexpected for a house band. In many cases the band members are much better than the guest stars. The drumming, flute and sax and guitar are all very good. Especially good is the keyboardist.

Many of the guest star performances are not that good. Joe Walsh is out of place singing the two songs we does, Forty Thousand Headman and John Barleycorn Must Die. I don't know why they didn't have him sing Light Up or Leave Me Alone...that would have been the perfect song for him. And I don't know why John Barleycorn was even included. It is an old English folk song and it was sung mostly by Steve Windwood in Traffic and what was originally supposed to be a Winwood solo album.

I don't think that Cat Stevens' song is anything special. Jon Lord, a founding member and ex-keyboardist of Deep Purple, is almost unnoticeable on the songs he plays on.

Paul Weller, and of course, Steve Windwood really shine on the songs they do. I don't know much about Weller, but I was impressed with his guitar playing and vocals.

The concert starts out strong and is very good through most of the first CD. Things start to drag a little on a few of the songs on the second CD. But, there is nothing bad and it is a fun CD to have.

If you enjoyed the group Traffic this is a must CD to purchase Jim Capaldi was a genius.

It was good. It's music I hadn't heard in a long time. I liked Joe Walsh and Pete Townsend and Gary Moores contributions especially. Steve Winwood is on the DVD of this tribute.

This is an unusual cd I like the fact that all these different artist are playing Jim Capaldis music it is a very good cd you get to like it.

Only for old nostalgics or collectors like me. The problem wih tribute is that it is often unequal. George Harrison is one of the rare successful tribute. Here choose the DVD rather than the CD. But I would advise to buy the Last Jam DVD with bonus CD with Jim Capaldi still alive