Customer Reviews

Say It in Private

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This LP was where Steve really began to put it all together in the studio. Immaculately, often beautifully produced with an unusually strong mixture of old, forgotten standards and excellent originals. The second half of the album is a Goodman/folkie eye-opener and it's nice to see that the production has been remastered; it deserves it.

It may be possible that Steve Goodman is one of the most overlooked folk singer-songwriters of the 70's. Like Leon Redbone, his folk sound is flavored with bits of bluegrass, country and blues, which may have turned off some purists during his recording years. This album finds Goodman almost literally in the middle of his career, and his songwriting and performing is mature yet far from past-his-prime. The ten songs on this album are composed mostly by Goodman with a few educated covers. "Two Lovers" is a Smoky Robinson song that Goodman easily translates into his soulfull own. The country & western source of Hank Williams' "Weary Blues From Waitin'" is removed completely as Goodman makes it his own introspective blues. There's the bluegrass "Is It True What They Say About Dixie?", the happy, saxophone-heavy "You're The Girl I Love", and the hilarious "Video Tape", which imagines humans to have the capability to fast forward and remind to the best parts of our lives. "Daley's Gone" is a simply arranged, honest and surprisingly affectionate lament to the late Mayor Richard J. Daley, the former "Boss" of Chicago. The album closes with probably one of the greatest epic folk anthems (if there is such a thing) that you've ever heard, "The Twentieth Century Is Almost Over"...

When my wife and I were dating way back in 1977, Steven Goodman came up to Northern Minnesota and played a gig at our college. It was Steve, a battered guitar, a microphone and a circle of 300 college kids. It was magic. Having seen Bob Dylan, The Boss, Lucy Kaplansky and a host of other singer-songerwriters over the past 30 years, that simple performance, in a dimly lit and little used hall on the campus, remains the most memorable concert I've attended. "The 20th Century is Almost Over" is Goodman at his finest; witty, musical and maniacal. "My Old Man" makes the tears flow. A worthy addition despite one or two sub-par efforts ("Two Lovers" as an example).