Whole Enchilada

Burrito Deluxe | Format: Audio CD

Product Details

• Audio CD (August 10, 2004)
• Number of Discs: 1
• Label: Luna Chica Records
• ASIN: B0002L56P6
• In-Print Editions: Audio CD  |  MP3 Download
• Average Customer Review: 4.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (6 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #379,136 in Music (See Top 100 in Music)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

5 of 5 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Superb, September 16, 2004

By 

SnowCrash7 (Columbus, OH United States) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Whole Enchilada (Audio CD)

Whether you call it alt.country, real country, Americana or whatever doesn't matter. This is one very fine piece of work by a true super group.
Take Sneaky Pete Kleinow, steel guitar wizard, founder of the Flying Burrito Brothers, Garth Hudson....yes that Garth Hudson from The Band, wonderful keyboard work ranging from honky tonk piano to delightful calliope and organ sounds, Jeff 'Stick' Davis, founder of the Amazing Rhthym Aces, the wonderful vocals of Carlton Moody and super-session man Rick Lonow and it would be hard to come up with anything short of wonderful.
And that's exactly what this album is. It should be getting airplay on every college, NPR, and Americana station around the country.
Remember what you felt like the first time you heard Garth Hudson't organ work with the Band on cuts like Chest Fever? Well check out their version of The Boxtop's The Letter. Just hearing Hudson's wonderful organ work on that cut gives you chills.
The sound is smooth, soothing yet stirring and wonderfully mixed. You'll find yourself playing it over and over. You just can't go wrong with this one.

4 of 4 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Garden variety weirdness produces quirky masterpiece, December 22, 2004

By 

Jan P. Dennis "Longboard jazzer" (Monument, CO USA) - See all my reviews
(VINE VOICE)    (REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Whole Enchilada (Audio CD)

SoCal Cajun upper New York roots music? Can that work? Yes. But you'd better check your expectations at the door.

The question is, How can a Dutch California hippy (Sneaky Pete Kleinow) co-exist, nay, flourish, cheek-by-jowl to a founding father of The Band (Garth Hudson) and an unreconstructed Zydeco refugee (Carlton Moody)? How indeed?

I'll tell you how. Let the genius of each come forth, pretty much unadulterated, and let the chips fall where they may. Sometimes you've just gotta trust the res, the acumen, of your fellow musician, no matter how far afield he hails from. That's what these boys did, and they've carved out, willy-nilly, some pretty happening Americana-cum-folk/roots real estate all their own.

On this, their second outing, they've managed to annex popular music space previously unoccupied--heck, unconceived--by anyone else. This is what that host of faux Americana poseurs (you know who you are) would sound like if they had the cojones to conjure authenticity of this spectacularity.

2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars +1/2 - Stellar second LP from warmed up Burritos, October 8, 2004

By 

hyperbolium (Earth, USA) - See all my reviews
(TOP 50 REVIEWER)    (HALL OF FAME REVIEWER)   

This review is from: Whole Enchilada (Audio CD)

With roots that reach back to The Flying Burrito Brothers, The Band and The Eagles, it's not too surprising that the second release from this aggregation centers around a soft, yet soulful California country-rock sound. But unlike their 2002 debut, the playing and song selection this time out doesn't rest so heavily on the remains of Gram Parsons. Instead, the band seems to have found its own identity, indebted to Parsons' work with the original Flying Burrito Brothers, but not just chasing its ghosts.

The album spans melodic two-steppers, soulful country, steel-guitar pop, blues, zydeco and much more. This is the epitome of an Americana album, artfully mixing and matching genres across the American musical experience. Highlights include a sweet cover of John Prine's "You Got Gold," the dreamy steel-and-organ instrumental "Sister," the first-person Civil War narrative "Last Letter Home," the DJ love letter, "Rex Bob Lowenstein," and the frontline dance rhythms of "Zydeco Ball."

Though the senior members of the band may not play with the ferocious inventivness of their youth, they play with the wisdom of age. Sneaky Pete Kleinow's steel may not offer up the out-of-this-world sounds it once did, but it adds texture and depth that's of equal interest. The same could be said for Garth Hudson's keyboard work; it provides beautiful underpinnings and filigree, and on a few occasions, such as the organ solo on the band's cover of "The Letter," it steps out front. This may not rekindle the revolutionary sparks of the Burrito Brothers - and really, it doesn't set out to - but it does provide a wonderfully diverse mix of American musical styles purveyed by a band whose backgrounds and history are a tasty secret sauce.