The Street Was Always There

Eric Andersen

Product Details

• Audio CD (September 21, 2004)
• Original Release Date: September 21, 2004
• Number of Discs: 1
• Label: Appleseed Records
• ASIN: B0002PUHBU
• In-Print Editions: MP3 Download
• Average Customer Review: 3.7 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (3 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #87,756 in Music (See Bestsellers in Music)

• This is item 1 in The Eric Andersen: Great American Song Series.

Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com

Having continued to turn out a body of consistently brilliant--if recently overlooked--original work since the 1960s, Andersen here decides to cover tunes from that fertile era. The period saw a spate of songs written to effect social change, like Buffy Sainte-Marie's "Universal Soldier," Phil Ochs's "I Ain't Marching Anymore," and, more elliptically, Bob Dylan's "A Hard Rain's A-Gonna Fall." Other artists covered, like Tim Hardin, Paul Siebel, and Fred Neil, dealt with more personal realms; radio play and "hits" were not an issue. These still relevant tunes prove that Andersen and his cohorts set a songwriting standard that has yet to be beaten--and is rarely equaled. --Michael Ross

Product Description

Eric Andersen, one of America’s premier singer-songwriters, puts aside his original material (for the most part) to "sing as freshly as possible the songs I first heard sung in the streets, cafes, and clubs by certain performing songwriters in the 1960s Greenwich Village" on "The Street Was Always There." Andersen presents passionate new versions of classics and forgotten gems written by his ’60s elders, contemporaries, and friends – Bob Dylan, Phil Ochs, Fred Neil, Tim Hardin, Peter La Farge, Patrick Sky, David Blue, Buffy Sainte-Marie and Paul Siebel.

On "The Street Was Always There," Andersen presents the many creative facets on the ’60s Village-based songwriters, spanning the protest and personal approaches to "folk music" and proving the timelessness of both. With vibrant production by multi-instrumentalist Robert Aaron (leader of international hip-hop/rap star Wyclef Jean’s band), Andersen applies his time-seasoned baritone to all-too-relevant anti-war songs – Dylan’s "A Hard Rain’s A-Gonna Fall," Sainte-Marie’s "Universal Soldier," Ochs’s "I Ain’t Marching Anymore" and "White Boots Marching in a Yellow Land" – the latter featuring an explosive rap by guest Wyclef Jean, who also plays electric guitar and bass on the track – as well as two of Fred Neil’s bluesy ballads, a shimmering bossa nova take on Tim Hardin’s "Misty Roses, and an unsettling version of David Blue’s "These 23 Days in September," among others. Andersen also revisits his own "Waves of Freedom" from 1969 and provides the newly-penned title track, a tribute to the Village community of the ’60s and to the endless options for expression and experience provided by the metaphorical "street." Joining Andersen (vocals, electric guitar) and Aaron (bass, guitar, keyboards, melodica, woodwinds) are special guests Wyclef Jean, ex-Lovin’ Spoonful leader and solo artist John Sebastian, fellow ’60s songwriter Patrick Sky, guitarist Pete Kennedy of the roots/pop duo The Kennedys, longtime Woodstock musician (and fellow Village graduate) Happy Traum (acoustic guitar), and a cast of top-flight sidemen. The CD booklet includes numerous historic photographs of the songwriters whose work is brought back to the public ear on this CD.

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

24 of 24 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars enduring songs from an American moment, September 27, 2004

By	Jerome Clark (Canby, Minnesota) - See all my reviews (TOP 1000 REVIEWER)    (REAL NAME)

Next to Dylan, Eric Andersen remains the most artistically vital performer to emerge from the legendary Greenwich Village folk scene of the 1960s. That's not only because -- unlike such as fellow talents as Fred Neil, Dave Van Ronk, Phil Ochs, David Blue, Tim Hardin, and Tim Buckley -- he's still alive; perhaps more to the point, it's because Andersen is still consumed with his muse. Though his approach remains based in the modern-folk sound created in those heady years (and I have not a single objection to that), he has an appealing way of putting that sound into unexpected but unforced more contemporary sonic textures.

Besides being a very fine singer, Andersen is an exceptional (if sometimes remote) songwriter. Here, however, he looks back to old days and old friends, reviving songs written mostly by others when he was prowling Village streets with Ochs, Dylan, and that fabled outlaw gang. Rock and hip-hop producer Robert Aaron doesn't attempt to recreate their original sound -- which in any event would be pointless since the first-draft versions are easily available -- but sets them under a shimmery folk-rock sky; at moments one could almost swear one is hearing voices accompanied by the aurora borealis. Throughout, Andersen's vocals treat the material, much of it bluntly political, with fierce, even unsettling conviction. Such moral urgency, encountered in an age too often defined by cruel indifference and brutal self-righteousness, is shocking, but it is more than welcome. Most of all, however, these are -- happily -- songs, not sermons, and entirely satisfying on that level.

I have heard nearly all of these songs for what seems like nearly all of my life, though in fact they first passed through my ears when I was a college student in the mid-1960s. Ever since, whenever I've heard somebody spout piously about the Great American Songbook, I've wondered why he or she never seems to have these songs in mind. In his section of the liner notes, producer Aaron -- to whom these songs were new when Andersen brought them to him -- wonders the same. Surely the equal of any written in the past century, these songs document a magical moment, an all-too-short one when older tradfolk-music forms entered a brave new world torn by change, war, and wild new possibilities and refused to blink. A handful of artists, acoustic guitars in hand, found their voices and sang for themselves and the ages.

Smartly conceived and ingeniously executed, The Street Was Always There does them proud. It takes their art to a new generation that will find it needs that art more than ever.

8 of 8 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars I don't know what took me so long, but this is a gem, October 24, 2005

By	o dubhthaigh (north rustico, pei, canada) - See all my reviews (TOP 500 REVIEWER)

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First off, I'm a long time Eric Andersen fan. Long time. Walked through 3 feet of snow on Bloor Street one winter's night in Toronto in '75 to hear Eric play before maybe 20 people (not his fault, blame the shinook that blew in). And would do it again in a heartbeat.
For some reason, thinking this might be just a throwback spurred on by Appleseed, I avoided this disc. I like Eric's songs. Man was I wrong. This is simply terrific, from the opening Fred Neil track to the closer. It pays homage to colleagues Eric knew in the Village days, while at the same time breathing fire into worthy tunes, thanks mainly to the superb guitar work by Eric and Pete Kennedy.
Eric often felt Dylan dealt Phil Ochs more than one underhanded blow in the course of their careers, and so Phil's "I'm not marching anymore," features a brilliant arrangement with Patrick Sky on uillean pipes to restore this moving song to its rightful place in the American folksong tradition. Fellow Canadian songwriter Buffy Saint Marie has her "Universal Soldier" delivered with a passion that doesn't just resonate these days, it demands attention. Funny how so much of the material here is so to the point of the duplicitous nature of US society. Maybe more so now than back in the day. The Roman Empire is starting to teeter. Some would say, it's got it coming. Eric simply points out where they left their conscience and leaves it to the denizens to decide to revive or decline. In that respect, as social and political commentary, Eric has released a profound gem, worthy of Plato's dialogues.
It is the notion of dissent that Ochs embraced as key to the American concept of democracy. The fascist element in power now would tell you that Ochs is unpatriotic. Hopefully, with the advocacy of Patrick FitzGerald in the CIA-leak case, treason will be unmasked where it lies. In the meantime, this is a disc whose merits ought to be mulled and discussed. It is a work of brilliance from a thinking poet, honouring those who were his comrades in thinking.

3 of 12 people found the following review helpful:

1.0 out of 5 stars My Name is the Real Rating for This CD, February 3, 2006

By	zero (Buffalo, NY USA) - See all my reviews

Embarrassingly bad remakes of 60s era folk sings. I couldn't decide what was worse - the ponderous singing, or the uninteresting electric guitar arrangements of tunes better suited to acoustic treatment. A particular lowlight is the comically bad rendition of Bob Dylan's "A Hard Rain's a Gonna Fall", which is painfully stretched out to over nine minutes. The liner notes, which elevate 1960s folk singers to the status of gods, add to the leaden effect of this CD. For boomers whose craze for nostalgia has completely overwhelmed their ability to recognize quality music - which this isn't.