Customer Reviews

Lifelines Live

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For all fans of Peter, Paul, & Mary, the live version of Lifelines is a wonderful display of folk music's purpose and soul. The special artists featured on this CD with p, p, & m are people who encouraged the group as they have grown. Along with these artists, p, p, & m selected younger artists who will hopefully carry on the great folk tradition. The songs on this CD cry out for love, acceptance, understanding, freedom, and peace--folk music's strongest elements. I love every song!! This is a great CD!

Peter, Paul & Mary, as a vocal trio, really come alive before an audience. To my ears they always sound so much more vibrant in concert than in 95% of their studio recordings -- and I've heard most of them. (Two memorable exceptions: "The Peter, Paul & Mary Album" from 1967 and "No Easy Walk To Freedom" from 1986.) There is something so magical about their harmonies -- they are, as a group, greater than the sum of their individual parts.

This is one of their later CDs recorded in concert in 1996, and a companion piece to their "Lifelines" recording. The concert features guest appearances by a number of folk superstars -- Dave Van Ronk, Ronnie Gilbert, Odetta, John Sebastian, and Tom Paxton among them. But there is a flatness to many of the performances that is surprising given the program and participants.

I believe the recording really picks up steam when Odetta joins Mary Travers on "House of the Rising Sun." That track really makes you take notice: Odetta's vocal is amazingly powerful and effectively blends together with Travers. The album's highpoint is Buddy Mondlock's beautiful song, "The Kid," on which he joins PP&M. It is a beautiful performance and alone is worth the price of the CD.

Certainly not their best effort but the CD contains a couple of outstanding performances.