Eric Andersen, Waves - 55m 19s

Tracks & Durations

1. Once I Was	3:54
2. Ramblin' Boy	4:04
3. I've Got A Secret	4:13
4. Pale Blue Eyes	5:55
5. Golden Bird	2:48
6. John Brown	4:09
7. Changes	5:58
8. Today is The Highway	3:08
9. On the Road Again	3:45
10. Coconut Grove	3:06
11. Bold Marauder	4:24
12. Hymn of Waves	4:29
13. Thirsty Boots	5:19

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Review

The contemporary resurgence of 1960s folkie Eric Andersen continues with Waves, a celebration of the Greenwich Village era in which he cut his musical teeth--a scene that would experience such transformation once Bob Dylan went electric. The CD's back cover shows an impossible boyish Andersen, Tom Paxton, and Phil Ochs four decades ago, while the front cover depicts the weathered troubadour that Andersen has become. The music finds him applying his maturity to material from that era, bringing a calypso twist to Paxton's "Ramblin' Boy," a lovely lilt to Ochs's "Changes," and a survivor's sensibility to his own "Today Is the Highway." He makes no attempt to duplicate the distinctive vocal style of the late Tim Buckley on the opening "Once I Was," though the phrasing of Fred Neil has plainly influenced Andersen's own on "I've Got a Secret." He acknowledges the kindred spirit (and folk underpinnings) of the era's New York rock with renditions of the Velvet Underground's "Pale Blue Eyes" and the Lovin' Spoonful's dreamy "Coconut Grove." The album ends appropriately with a singalong hootenanny, as Judy Collins, Arlo Guthrie, and Tom Rush trade verses with Andersen on a concert recording of his signature ballad, "Thirsty Boots." --Don McLeeseDoes forgotten art die?

Not if Eric Andersen can help it. A masterful and groundbreaking singer-songwriter himself ("Thirsty Boots," "Blue River," "Violets of Dawn,"), Andersen recognizes that a great song unremembered can be washed away forever in the flood of new and mostly disposable music that drenches us daily. His desire to keep "fresh and new" the songs of his early Sixties Greenwich Village compatriots Bob Dylan, Tom Paxton, Phil Ochs, Fred Neil and others in the transition from traditional folk music to a more poetic and personal style of songwriting led Eric to record last year's "The Street Was Always There" and now "Waves," the second volume in his "Great American Song Series."

Like its predecessor, "Waves" gathers timeless songs by many of Eric's "friends and acquaintances" and presents them in contemporary but intimate arrangements. The range of writers and material that Andersen has chosen to cover reflects the creative explosion of the Sixties: Tim Buckley's shimmering, ethereal "Once I Was," the folkish elegy "Ramblin' Boy" by Andersen mentor Tom Paxton; Happy Traum's metaphorical trad-folk, "Golden Bird," is preceded by an understated reading of Lou Reed's bittersweet Velvet Underground ballad, "Pale Blue Eyes." Other songs include Phil Ochs' "Changes"; Fred Neil's bluesy "I've Got a Secret"; a jauntily rocking rendition of Tom Rush's "On the Road Again"; and the dreamy "Coconut Grove," written by the Lovin' Spoonful's John Sebastian and Zal Yanovsky. There are also two forceful, snarling anti-war/anti-imperialism songs - Dylan's "John Brown" and the late Richard Fariña's "Bold Marauder" - and a pair of Andersen's own early signature songs, "! Today is the Highway" and "Thirsty Boots," the latter a live bonus track featuring Eric, Judy Collins, Tom Rush and Arlo Guthrie, that previously appeared on the "Judy Collins Wildflower Festival" CD. As on "The Street," "Waves" includes a newly written Andersen title track ("Hymn of Waves").

Joining Andersen (vocals, electric & acoustic guitars, harmonica) are his longtime producer and arranger Robert Aaron (bass, keyboards, woodwinds; fellow Appleseed artists The Kennedys; Greenwich Village alumni Happy Traum and Jim Glover, and an attuned core of funk/jazz/rock sessioneers.

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