Customer Reviews

Nashville

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3 star:		(1)
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1 star:		(2)

 

 

Points to Carolyn Mark for putting together this tribute to Altman's classic film and to the musical performances he directed and the actors brought to Nashville, my single favorite film ever. To paraphrase Spinal Tap, though, it's such a fine line between tribute and parody; here some of the performances fall into the latter. The greatest disappointment is the Haven Hamilton songs. In the film, and on its soundtrack, Henry Gibson caught Hamilton's smug arrogance but also sang the ridiculous songs that put him on a fictional Nashville pedestal with something like respect. Here they are mostly treated as jokes. I also think that Mark herself hurries through My Idaho Home as if oblivious to the context of the film's coming shock. But then, who could match Ronee Blakley, in those climactic moments? The best work on the CD is by Neko Case on Rolling Stone, Kelly Hogan on Dues and Robyn Carrigan on It Don't Worry Me.

Good and bad considered, in the end, as a labor of love and respect, the CD is a keeper.

Yeah, I love Nashville. One of my favorite movies. And the soundtrack is a personal favorite. What's more, I love singing along as it plays. However, it would never occur to me to record my own singing of these great songs, and it is unfortunate that the people responsible for this didn't exercise the same common sense. This CD is truly wretched.

Do yourself a favor. Watch the movie. Repeatedly. Buy and listen to the soundtrack. But avoid this mess at all costs.

Ideally both, if you really loved the Robert Altman movie and are a die-hard fan of Carolyn Mark, Neko Case and their Canadian gang of alt.country aficionados. But probably you don't want to spend your bucks on two very similar CDs. So, let's start the comparison.

In terms of sheer quantity, this tribute CD beats the original soundtrack 46 min. vs. 40 min. However, the additional time is mainly devoted to speeches and second-ranking songs, so it's not that significant. For instance, the three speeches by Steve Lang, in the shoes of the quixotic and mysterious presidential candidate Hal Phillip Walker, last about 1.30 min. They are funny, especially the tirade against lawyers, but then you'd better watch the movie. As for the supplemental songs in this CD, only "Since You've Gone" and "I've never get enough", this one if you want to indulge yourself with double meaning lyrics, are worthy of notice.

If you move to consider the songs contained in both CDs, you'll discover that all the artists in this album try to reproduce the original performances as faithfully as possible. (This album doesn't stand up for originality, like any work by a devotee). Some succeed in their attempt, some not, but for the most part comparisons end in a tie. Namely, Dave Gowans and Dave Lang are good surrogates of the self-righteous Haven Hamilton played by Henry Gibson; Dallas Good convincingly sings "Bluebird" and maybe he is even slightly better than the original; Carolyn Mark, the mind behind this tribute, is an acceptable substitute for Ronee Blakely; Dottie Cormier manages to hold the same Ronee Blakely to a draw in "Tapedeck in His Tractor"; Tolan McNeil does a good job on "I'm Easy" and Robyn Carrigan infuses more vigour in "It Don't Worry Me" than Barbara Harris, if that's possible.

Neko Case vocally outperforms Karen Black in "Rolling Stone". However, the latter is better than Carl Newman (the "New Pornographer" does an honest job in "Memphis", but this song is suited for a female voice).

In my opinion, the best song from the Nashville movie is "Dues" by Ronee Blakely. Blakely released two albums in the 70's, but then disappeared from the music scene. It's such a pity, because she's a great singer/songwriter ("Dues","Tapedeck in His Tractor", "My Idaho Home" and "Bluebird", all penned by her, are the musical highlights of the movie). Here, Kelly Hogan try to emulate her in "Dues". In terms of vocal delivery, they stand on a par, but Hogan is too polished for my tastes. I appreciate much more the rawness of Blakely, who, contrary to Hogan, succeeds in conveying the song's sense of grief (as in the refrain "It hurts so bad, it gets me down down down, I wanna walk away from this battleground").

To sum up, if you have to buy just one album, then go for the original soundtrack, at least for Blakely's version of "Dues". Before any buy, though, you should watch the movie. It's good fun and it'll make your listening much more enjoyable.

What a great idea! The cd is a lot of fun and the Kelly Hogan song alone is worth the price.

This is a tribute album to Robert Altman's classic film, Nashville. Unlike most tribute albums, there are no performances by anyone you ever heard of on this one. On this one, a Canadian woman got some of her friends together and recorded the songs from her favorite movie. Surprisingly, it's actually quite good. All the singer can carry a tune, and they are backed up by professional musicians. The CD includes all the songs from the film (including some that were left off of the soundtrack album), plus some bits of dialogue from the movie. I found it to be quite entertaining, although some people may be annoyed that they stayed SO faithful to the songs' original arrangements.

It's a wonderful tribute by some of my favorite singers...Neko is indeed a "star" at least to me and to many others.

Back in the 70's a great movie was made by Robert Altman and a fantastic cast of actors. The songs for the most part were written by the performers themselves much in the country music tradition. Creating and playing character in this movie meant more than memorizing lines (there are tons of ad lib lines in the movie) but inventing a performer and his or her music catalogue as well. Now for this well meaning tribute album. These artist are certainly talented in their own right but why, why, why did they feel mimicking the original soundtrack artists would some how make this a CD worth buying? It must have been a blast to record this CD unfortunately it's a not so fun to listen to. Imagine a 21st century interpretation of this unusual Hollywood does country musical score. Even if this approach failed it would have earned some respect for the attempt instead of loving yet misguided tribute.