Sundown

Rank and File | Format: Audio CD

Product Details

• Audio CD (May 10, 2005)
• Number of Discs: 1
• Label: Collector's Choice
• ASIN: B00078GHO8
• Also Available in: Audio CD  |  Vinyl
• Average Customer Review: 5.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (7 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #187,630 in Music (See Top 100 in Music)

Track Listings

1. Amanda Ruth

2. (Glad I'm) Not in Love

3. Rank and File

4. The Conductor Wore Black

5. Sundown

6. I Went Walking

7. Lucky Day

8. I Don't Go Out Much Anymore

9. Coyote

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

21 of 22 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars You Need This, October 27, 2005

By 

R. Smith "rscrabb" (Viola, Iowa USA) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Sundown (Audio CD)

Before the Americana/No Depression music came out, there was Rank And File. Back then it was known as Cowpunk (whatever that meant) as the Kinman Brothers, formerly leading the Punk band Dils, moved to Austin and recuited then unknown Alejandro Escovedo and Slim Evans and became Rank and File. On the album, side one had some heavy hitters such as Amanda Ruth (later covered by the Everly Brothers), Glad I'm Not In Love, and the band named Rank And File to which they throw in part of Ernest Tubb's Thanks a Lot to really throw a curve and The Conductor Wore Black to end things out on a classic note. On the title track Sundown, Tony Kinman's voice echos Johnny Cash, although on further listening, probaly inspired upcoming Nashville singer Josh Turner (probaly not but would it be amazing if Josh Turner had a copy of Sundown tucked there between the Randy Travis and Johnny Cash records in his collection), and thought the next three songs are pretty good, the album ends with the rocking Coyote. Soon afterwards Jason And the Scorchers would surface with their Fervor EP, which later Uncle Tupelo would later incoporate both styles into their No Depression leadoff, but Sundown was pioneering stuff, again falling into the too rock for country and too country for rock radio, which lead some lucky listeners to hear it on public radio (to which I heard the Rank And File song first and was knocked out and it took forever to find the album)

Sadly good things don't seem to last and Alejandro Escovedo left to form the equally just as good True Believers whose albums were reissued on Rykodisc and have fallen out of print but you can still get it fairly cheap but that's another story. Rhino Handmade paired Sundown and Long Gone Dead a limited edition called The Slash Years and copies went by fast. However rejoice in the fact that Collector's Choice has heard the calls and have reissued both Sundown and Long Gone Dead on seperate CDs.

Sooooo, if you want to hear one of the best albums of the 80s, better than anything that MTV ever promote, and if you want to hear the beginnings of Americana, you need Sundown. It's that simple.

11 of 11 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars It's about time!, March 15, 2005

By 

James E. Dodge "Jim Dodge" (Providence, Rhode Island) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Sundown (Audio CD)

Way back in the early 1980's at the height of the Rock-a-billy revival in which the Stray Cats were at the front of, there was another musical revolution occuring. Based mostly on the west coast there was a movement to reclaim Country & Western music from the knuckle heads like Kenny Rogers and smooth slick producers who produced that kind of smaltz. Singer/song writers like Dwight Yoakum and bands like The Blasters and Los Lobos were carving a spot in popular music for just such a revolution, called by the media, who needs to label everything least they don't understand it, "COWPUNK"
Then in 1982, four ex-punk band members decided to give country music a try after seeing punk band after punk band sell out.
Rank & File was formed from those ex-punkers and their debut album "Sundown" was excellent to say the least. Well writen songs by the Kinman Brothers and with strong guitar work by Alejandro Escovedo with vocals by the Kinmans and Mark Germino(very Johnny Cash influenced, I must say on "The Conductor Wears Back") make up this excellent first effort.
The "DIXIE" guitar lead-in on the title track can not be beat! It's about time that it's available on Compact disc.
Check out their sophmore effort "Long Gone Dead", also just made avilable on CD.
If you like Rank & File and "Sundown" go listen to The Beat Farmers and the Cowboy Junkies and, of course, Dwight Yoakum and The Blasters.
With this re-release, "COWPUNK" LIVES!

8 of 8 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Everybody's Trying Hard to Be Profound - Sundown's Too Cool to Be Forgotten Attitude, November 18, 2007

By 

Peter Walenta "flying parsons" (Long Island, New York USA) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Sundown (Audio CD)

With nine songs clocking in at a whirl wind 31:15, Rank and File's 1982 debut record "Sundown" is hands down a great 1980's roots rock record in the same league as "Truth Decay", "How Will the Wolf Survive?" and "The Blasters", and it is undeniably one of the seminal precursors to the alt.country movement of the early 1990's. Uncle Tupelo, Son Volt, the Waco Brothers, The Sadies and many others all owe a huge debt of gratitude to the original cow-punks, Rank and File. Every review here is dead on accurate about how good this record is. I could gush more superlatives about what a great country & roots rock record "Sundown" is, how it speaks to the plight of the downtrodden outsider, and about how tight and inspired a sound that brothers Chip and Tony Kinman, Slim Evans and a budding Alejandro Escovedo wrung out of their combo of guitars, bass and drums, but that has been done by music critics more famous than me. Superlative gushers include Robert Christgau who rated Sundown A- in his Consumer Guide column, the Los Angeles Times which hailed "Sundown" as "one of the strongest American debut records in a decade", and Jimmy Guterman who ranked "Sundown" at number 47 in the list of 100 records that he wrote about in his terrifically informative 1992 book, "The Best Rock `n' Roll Records of All Time". Believe them all, as "Sundown" is that good.

That "Sundown" was so long out of print is one of those unexplainable record company business decisions and just a doggone shame. Fortunately, for us, the nice folks at Collector's Choice Records (a subsidiary of Rhino) re-issued "Sundown" in 2005 without any bonus tracks...just with some interesting new liner notes by Chip Kinman and with improved sound (much better sounding than my old non-chromium dioxide cassette which disintegrated a long time ago). Chip Kinman's new notes are enlightening as he describes the process of connecting with his fellow band mates in a pre-internet era, and of getting the musical inspiration they needed to do it themselves as they listened to Merle Haggard sing while standing outside of New York City's Lone Star Cafe...too poor themselves to buy tickets to the show. I'm guessing that Chip and his fellow band mates eventually made some money in the music business perhaps not as Rank and File in the early 1980's, but that scene described by Kinman is a metaphor for what Rank and File's music was and is...outside mainstream country but deeply rooted in country's core traditions of simple honest playing and singing. In a larger sense it's also a metaphor for what alt.country stands for but I can now hear myself shuffling off into the fog of St. Mark's Place.... That `No Depression' magazine did not include this record in their list of Top 20 re-issues of 2005 is puzzling, but "Sundown" has proven the test of time and now it can be heard again in all of it's country-punk glory by hopefully a larger audience. For heaven's sake stop reading this semi-pretentious review and get this record you lover of Americana...and rock on! A rightly deserved five stars!