Customer Reviews

The Longest Road

5 star:		(3)
4 star:		(1)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

It's sad to hear this fine album that was never promoted by WB. The single First Love was a perfect ballad that should have marked their return to the pop charts. But no one got to hear it. In fact, this album was really hard to find even if you went looking for it. And it's a gem. The title song is catchy and well constructed. Here, S&C reached a new level of sophistication in both their songwriting and musicianship. The most intriguing song is Stars, where Jimmy plays sax with jazz greats Chick Corea and Stanley Clarke. Brian Whitcomb plays great keyboards and shares much of the songwriting credit throughout. S&C also deliver the required emotional ballad with One Planet, One People (with one of Dash's signature mandolin melodies leading the way). One must bypass Egypt, Israel & America and the battery of session musicians that make some moments overkill, but this is one fine effort. Kite Dreams has a shimmering quality that uplifts. Silver Rails is an interesting, enigmatic tune that asks a lot of questions with railroad metaphors. But one tends to circle back to the track Stars time and time again, for its pop/jazz meld. Such a shame this album has been in the dark so long.

I grew up listening to Seals & Crofts when all of their material was new. Every year I looked forward to a new S&C album and was pretty happy until 1980 which was "The END of the Road". I have been bitterly disappointed that for years, no one issued these great LPs in CD format except for an inadequate Greatest Hits package (missing "Get Closer"), "Summer Breeze", and the hard-to-find "Diamond Girl". My excitement was off-the-scale to see that Wounded Bird records picked up the remainder of the catalog (except for "Get Closer" which was actually just released by Warner).

With that said, the first thing I want to assure everyone reading this is that in no way were any of the tracks compromised from the original recordings. They are ABSOLUTELY as the were on the original LP. The next important question is the recording quality. This is good news as well. "The Longest Road" was S&C's last studio LP released in 1980 before the recent "Traces" release in 2004. Even as an LP the dynamic range of the recording was much better than the previous LPs and that makes this CD that much better. Also, this is the ONLY Wounded Bird S&C CD that does not have noticable background hiss on the songs. That was the one disappointing aspect of the other S&C Wounded Bird releases although I am still grateful to have those as well (and the background noise does not ruin the overall sound quality of those CDs). The songs on "The Longest Road" sound clean and crisp and even better than on the LP - especially the song "One Planet, One People Please".

I own every Seals & Crofts album ever released and I continue to believe that "The Longest Road" was in the top 2 or 2 S&C LPs for quality of songs. Of the 10 tracks, I think 3 are pedestrian and the other 7 are fabulous. The first track "Stars" is heavily jazz influenced and has some top-notch session players (such as Chick Corea and Stanley Clarke). My 2 favorite songs are "Silver Rails" (which features Dash once again with the Summer Breeze toy piano) and "One Planet, One People, Please" which has a great message about humanity, a killer tune, and Dash playing his beautiful mandolin. The title track "The Longest Road" is an up-tempo catchy tune featuring great harmonies and a wonderful sax solo. Any Seals & Crofts fan should have this CD in their collection. If you never owned ANY Seals & Crofts albums, this is one you should get. I own over 1,000 CDs and this is among my favorites. Thank you Wounded Bird for bringing this wonderful duo back to life. "The Longest Road" was worth the long wait.

I purchase this CD solely because I like "Kite Dreams", but I only had a bad quality downloaded mp3 (recorded from LP I think because it has a lot of clicks) and I kept searching any CD contains this song.
Recently I gave a try again and found The Longest Road album, so I ordered it of course.
After I received this CD, I soon realize this is a truly "hidden gem". The music format is a bit different from what they (Seals and Crofts) produced.
Kite Dreams played on the CD sounds much, much, much better than I ever heard before and I found few more favorites:
Stars
First Love
I Keep Changing the Faces
One Planet, One People, Please
I give 97/100 because it's actually a really good one, and highly recommended if you like Seals and Crofts products or you previously owned the LP/tape.

I purchased record back when first realeased on album in 1980, and being a fan really wanted to like it.but that did not happen for me on this album . Fast forward 28 yrs and seals and crofts albums are now on cd and i was excited and ordered 2-3 but not the longest road. I so enjoyed listening to get closer, and takin it easy and the greatest hits- I started thinking about the longest road. I had not had the record for the past 25 yrs and now i wanted to hear it once again, and so i order cd. I played cd and i heard it completely different from so many years earlier. The music has a pop jazz feel and sound to it, and the lyric are very good and interesting. Probably in my late teens i was playing alot of pop records and this is not that kind of a cd. The longest road is now one of my favorites by seals and crofts, and so for me it sure has been the longest road. I do not know if anyone else would feel this way or not, but if you are on the fence then maybe it will help you jump on over-- I certainly hope so.

This album has moments and all the right elements that made seals and crofts so popular with the fans who liked their stuff. but there are limits to how much one can stomach goody boy, mealy mouthed pontifications which, at best, seem pitifully naive. 'Israel, Egypt and America'would induce nausea in even the most hardened bucolic from the corn belt! 'Stars' is a great piece, but even that cannot repair the damage done. it is unfortunate that the length and weight of the title of the offending piece renders any kind of redemption insignificant

sunu charles