Customer Reviews

Men Without Women/Voice of America

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If you are a fan of Steven Van Zandt you are of course familiar with these two albums. Here is your chance to get them both together (this comes as a two cd set, not both albums on one cd).
The remaster job is excellent, there are also some great liner notes and pictures, BGO did a first class job on this reissue.
There is not much need to go into the music as I am sure that any reading this already know how great these two albums are. Little Steven is great, pure and simple. He writes terrific songs, he is an outstanding singer/guitar player, the band is top notch. and the production is tight.
I highly recommend this set , for 18.99 you can not possibly go wrong.

A great many viewers discovered Little Steven/ Miami Steve Van Zandt from The Sopranos. Time Warp backwards, he was a member of Bruce Springsteen's E Street Band. In between he was a social activist, and created the (Don't Play) Sun City album project encouraging artists to boycott the South African resort in an effort to bring an end to apartheid.

I've heard Men Without Women and own Born Again Savage, but I think Little Steven's Voice of America is not only his best work, it's one of the best early '80s albums period. Checkpoint Charlie was prescient in predicting the fall of the Berlin wall: "Wall so high, gotta come down baby." If the news knew anything about popular culture, they would have played that (or The Walls Came Down by the Call) as the soundtrack of that historic moment. The list of great songs goes on and on: "Los Disparacidos (The Disappeared,:" "Undefeated," and especially the piece de resistance, "Out of the Darkness," one of the few songs which, like U2's One, manages to combine relationships aned spirituality. The Boss wrote "Blood Brother" when Steve left the band to pursue these various pursuits. How sad that just when Born in the USA gained the questionable honor of making the cover of Time magazine, his bandmates' best album slipped into obscurity. Hopefully with this double release the Voice of America will for the first time be heard.

Yes, Sopranos is fun & Steven's very funny in it, a natural actor.

More important, he's a strong reason Bruce Springsteen is such an immense success with the E Street Band. Little Steven is a superb musician & songsmith -- great melodies, beautiful words.

The Men Without Women disc is a great one, sure joy compared to a lot of the drivel taking up the space in your brain today.

But in VOICE OF AMERICA, Little Steven Van Zandt was touched by the greatest spirits in the universe. It's simply ONE OF THE GREATEST collections of songs on a disc EVER MADE, yowzuh, right up there with Dylan, Lennon, U2, R.E.M. & the others who fill out your top ten. And thank gawd IT'S FINALLY RE-ISSUED! A mint condition copy of VOA sold on Amazon for $160 as recent as last week. My original copy was borrowed and never returned.
I've been aching to get this sound back.

The songs VOICE OF AMERICA, I AM A PATRIOT (absolutely the best arrangement ever produced, notwithstanding the covers of it by great singers all over the world), JUSTICE, SOLIDARITY -- they're all superbly crafted songs, real works of art that will stand up to be cheered a thousand years from now.

You should be sold. You should buy a couple of copies so you can give one to the most special person in your life.
Thank you Steve, for this great gift to the world.

xox0xox
Hutch

ps: 15 years ago I produced 4 half-hours on the radio, called "Dear Abbie! A Celebration of the Words of Abbie Hoffman."
I was permitted to use Steven's songs from VOA, and all the songs on the series except two were from VOICE OF AMERICA.
Best series I ever produced.

I own both of these albumns on LP and each is great individually, but together.........well it would have to be on my 10 CD's to have on a desert island list. I'll make an even bolder statement, one of the 10 best albumns in rock history.

How Van Zandt's solo work has been neglected by the masses is one of life's great mysteries to me. Thankfully he's happy with the twists his career has brought him and wasn't crushed by his lack of solo success.

There was a time in my life that I accessed old friends and new acquaintences by how they reacted to these albumns. I can think of only one individual that didn't become an immediate fan who's still a friend. Even that balanced out because his little sister fell in love with Little Steven and was my companion at the greatest live concert I've ever seen. That would be Little Steven and band from the VOA tour at Meriweather Post Pavilion in '83. It was the basic band, without the horn section of Men Without Women and the absolute raw power........well I had never heard before, nor have I heard since anything to compare. I'll never forget Danelli's drum kit 20 feet in the air with huge tube extensions that went all of the way to the stage, the reggae vesion of "Lyin'In a Bed of Fire" with Beauvoir's Haitian accented background vocals. Those two produced such a thunderous rhythm beat that you started to breathe in unison with them.

The place was only half full, maybe 7-8,000 people, but I remember talking with folks after the show on the way to the parking lot, people were soaked in sweat and just about everyone's reaction was, "that was the best thing that I have ever seen, heard and FELT!"...........

LITTLE STEVEN IS MORE RELEVANT THAN EVER BEFORE. HE COULD HAVE RODE THE BOSS'S COAT TAILS, BUT INSTEAD BLAZED HIS OWN TRAIL. THE MUSICAL AND LYRICAL THEMES OF THESE ALBUMS ARE TIMELESS.

Finally! Voice Of America on cd.
One of the greatest albums ever made. Hard rock meets reggae. Fantastic rock album that should have sold millions.
For some reason the album was impossible to get here in europe for many years.
But now... It's here. And as a bonus we get it as a double album with Men Without Women.
It can't get much better than this! One of my favorite albums ever.

With the nucleus of outstanding bassist Jean Beauvoir and drummer Dino Danelli - with appearances by members of the E Street Band and The Asbury Jukes and other guests - Little Steven produced albums in 1982 and 1984 that were critically-acclaimed, while showing different sides of his artistry.

Men Without Women (1982) was a nod to the Stax/Volt sound and prominently featured Felix Cavaliere on piano/organ and La Bamba on trombone, along with Max Weinberg, Gary Tallent, Clarence Clemons and Gary "U.S." Bonds. Lyin' in a Bed of Fire is a sizzling rocker, though the standouts are the tracks that change the pace; Princess of Little Italy and Angel Eyes. An ambitious long-form film was produced as a soundtrack, but it was only shown - very briefly - in a few theaters in Los Angeles, though portions were edited for music videos.

Voice of America (1984) is a political statement centered on dissent not meaning disloyalty to the nation. This was during the oftentimes controversial foreign-policy era of President Ronald Reagan, with Little Steven's central theme delivered in I Am a Patriot. The lyrics and garage-band sound travels the world in Voice of America, Checkpoint Charlie and Los Desaparecidos.

These albums have been difficult to find over the many years, but this set brings out of the vault a pair of vastly-underrated releases.

A year or so ago, I looked for Voice of America on various used and new sites, and found only one used copy costing hundreds of dollars. Thank goodness this double CD is now easily available! Men Without Women contains Steve Van Zandt's tribute to the Stax/Volt sound, aided by the Disciples of Soul, including the Miami Horns. When I first heard the opening song "Lyin' in a Bed of Fire" on the radio, I thought Bob Dylan had decided to thoroughly rock out. Steve's voice takes some getting used to, but the catchy and lyrically polished songs are impressive and repay repeated listening over years -- over twenty years later Men Without Women remains one of my favourite albums. From the slash and burn raveup of "Under the Gun" to the bittersweet ballad "Princess of Little Italy," each song shows us that The Sopranos' gain is good music's loss.

The second CD, Voice of America, has Little Steven without the Disciples of Soul, showing what heavy metal could have been in the 80's if more people had emphasized the real world instead of unreal hair. The harder, more synthesized sound here does not detract at all from the lyrical intensity, or the thoughtful political and social commentary. Nor does the commitment and seriousness of the songs keep them from being great rockers (or otherwise: "I Am a Patriot/And the River Opens for the Righteous" shows its reggaefied stuff better than Jackson Browne's smoother version. "Checkpoint Charlie" reminds us of the ragged disjointedness of a country torn apart, and "Undefeated" hopes for a better world.

These two albums together show that Steve Van Zandt is an artist on a par with anyone who produced music in the last century.

These two albums are so great.Little steven is one of least appreciated artist of all time.Along with Southside johnny and graham parker.Both these cds should have gotten more air play, but didn"t.Steven is a great songwriter and guitarist.Buy these cds and You'll be happy you did.Men without women is my personal favorite but voice of america is a close second.

The first Little Steven album Men Without Women is absolutely fantastic. From the intro of the first track, "Lying In A Bed Of Fire" you have an idea of what is to follow. Mainly Rock music, but you could also call "Forever" and "Angel Eyes" as slightly Popish. "Forever" has a sound something like Motown background to it. The second album Voice Of Amercia is not as good as a follow up album as expected, but Out Of The Darkness and Undefeated make up for the dissapointment.

I had these on vinyl from maybe over 25 to 30 years ago, but had to replace them with CD's, shows you how old I am. I actually saw Little Steven and the Disciples of Soul in the 1970's at the Hammersmith Palais in London, La Bamba, Jean Beauvoir et al, and they were were just so brilliant. Anyone who has been to the Palais knows that it was compact but the place rocked that night. Within 18 months Little Steven was back in London playing the Hammersmith Odeon, bit like a cinema, and did'nt have the same atmosphere, there were hardly any of the original Disciples of Soul with Little Steven which was a bit of a downer, bu still very good. If they ever were to perform again go and watch them.