4.0 out of 5 stars
A Backwards Retrospective, November 10, 2010
This review is from: Members Edition (Audio CD)
This is one of those butgetline European collections (the Dutch seem to be especially given to such things) that cobbles together recordings from an artist's entire career, packages them together without a lot of apparent rhyme nor reason or attention to the sequencing and packaging. And there's never anything like liner notes to give you any kind of overview. You kinda have to just figure things out for yourself--or not.
Actually, this particular Burl Ives anthology is not as spotty as some. The songs are mainly grouped into two sections: several selections from quite late in his career, followed by some classic folk tracks from his earliest days. Odd sequencing, to be sure, but oddly--if accidentally--effective too. Call it a career retrospective in reverse.
I always thought that Burl Ives had the classic "grandfatherly" manner and, by extension, the classic old man's voice. Of course, if you listen to his earliest tracks, the folksy, general store quality was always there--and the guy couldn't always have been old. But if you grew up watching and listening to Burl Ives on TV in the 50s and 60s, you just had that image of him, the gentle old duffer with a corncob pipe and a sparkle in his eye. Who knew he was really a middle aged guy (only in 40s and 50s at that time), singing in a distinctive, but normal(and non-age-specific tenor?
Towards the end of Ives' life--as evidenced by the opening tracks on this record--he really was singing in an "old man's voice," a bit more worn and weary. By contrast, you could see how supple an instrument his more youthful voice actually was. Wisely, he selected tunes with themes addressing aging and the passing of time. Songs like "Time" and "Another Day, Another Year" show a voice that's a bit rougher around the edges, but it serves the texts fairly well, although his timing on the later track seems a bit off. And on the former track, he doesn't even try to sing pretty: "Time" is just garrulous bark-singing. Oddly enough, given its theme of an older man trying to figure out all these changes out, it's actually pretty effective.
On other tracks from around same time period, he retains his distinctive style and much of his youthful purity. The title track "Galisteo" is a prime example. It's a much poppier tune than the folk of his early days, but it's sung in his patented Burl Ives tenor. It's an appealing picture of small town life, New Mexico style. One gets a disticnt impression of peaceful, isolated desert life, where the main contact with the outside world is the "jets from California" zooming overhead. Really, a charming evocative piece, and the only frustrating thing is that there are no credits to indicate who wrote it..
Also from this later era is one of the weirdest Ives tracks I've ever heard. "Roll Up Some Inspiration" has that garrulous quality present on one or two other tracks. It's lively enough, but it's as bizarrely rambling a ramble as you'd ever want to hear. Actually, it sounds made up on the spot (and just what the heck is "divation" anyway). If someone told me ol' Burl had been tipplin' a tad just prior to the recording session, I wouldn't be surprised. But when closes this quirky little number by saying, "Yes, friends, we hope you've enjoyed this little song/ and if you've learned something from it, HOORAY." Learn something? Uh, Burl, you didn't SAY anything. He then slips into a recitation of the poem "Upon Julia's Clothes..." Pretty surreal stuff for a Burl Ives record.
The last eleven songs on this anthology all stem from Ives' classic folk period and all have that kind of folksy earnestness so typical of tracks from the era. They could easily have been recorded for Library of Congress preservation or something. Many have a brief context-setting intro that is sometimes helpful and sometimes feels like Folk Music 101. If you can live with that, you'll find listening to these early tracks instructive and, yeah, enjoyable. It all stays on a pretty even keel, though--no real show stoppers or stand out tracks, but enough to remind you that Burl Ives really did have a remarkably lovely voice back in the day.
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