Since I
finished posting my favorite 100 songs of all time, I’m turning my attention in
2015 to favorite albums. As with the songs, I decided to spread the love around
by having no more than one album per artist. I also ruled out best-ofs and
other compilations, since it seemed to me that these would have an unfair edge.
(Might possibly get around to doing a separate list of those later.)
After
starting to figure things out, I decided pretty quickly that 100 would be much
too high a number for albums; 25 seemed to be about right. I did cheat a little
by coming up a separate list of my 5 favorite live albums, rather than
including those in the main list.
Favorite
Live Albums
5. The Robert Cray Band – Live From Across The Pond
(2006)
As with
Richard Thompson and James Hunter, I’ve always felt a little jealous of Robert
Cray – it seems unfair that one person should be so gifted as a songwriter,
singer, AND guitar player. Cray has gotten some static over the years for not
being a pure enough bluesman; while his lyrics are as bluesy as you can get,
his music leans more on Southern soul than it does on the traditional 12-bar
blues idiom. Although this 2-disc set omits a couple of my favorites (“Strong
Persuader” and “Night Patrol”), Cray and his band (especially keyboardist Jim
Pugh) are great live, and this probably serves as a better introduction to his
music than any of his studio albums do.
Best
tracks: Phone Booth, Poor Johnny, Right
Next Door (Because Of Me), Bad Influence, The One In The Middle
4. Into the Mirror: Del Amitri Live in Concert
(2014)
Since Del
Amitri is one of my all-time favorite bands, this one is a no-brainer, although
(1) I’ve only had it for a couple months, and (2) it’s a limited edition. (From
the band’s Facebook page: “Demand for the
live album of this year's tour was so great that it sold out on the day of
release. We have decided to make the tracks available digitally over the
holidays - you can now purchase the tracks from "Into the Mirror" at
iTunes, Amazon, Spotify etc, etc, etc. (No more cds though, I'm afraid; if you
want the nice box and the booklet you will have to steal one.)”)
The band
broke up in 2002, but decided to get together for a 20-date UK reunion tour in
January-February 2014. (If they had picked a more tourist-friendly time of
year, I almost certainly would have planned a vacation in England to overlap
with one or two of the shows.) This double-CD set documents the tour, featuring
most of their most familiar tracks plus a few that were new to me. The band
sounded as though it had never left, and the crowds were appropriately
enthusiastic.
Best
tracks: Always The Last To Know, Be My
Downfall, Roll To Me, Driving With The Brakes On
3. The Allman Brothers Band at Fillmore East
(1971)
One of the
all-time classics, dating back to my college days, by the greatest
blues/rock/jam band of all time. The only problem is that listening to it
properly in the car requires some planning, since 2 of the 7 tracks are each
over 19 minutes long. (It does make for a nice round-trip drive to Nats Park,
though.)
Best
tracks: Stormy Monday, In Memory Of
Elizabeth Reed, Whipping Post (all 23:03 of it)
2. The Youngbloods – Ride The Wind (1971)
To the best
of my admittedly hazy recollection, this was the first LP I bought after
enrolling at Lebanon Valley. I didn’t buy it at the college bookstore, but at a
newspaper/magazine store a few blocks off campus that had a small selection of
records. It was pretty much of an impulse purchase – I loved their
modestly-successful single “Sunlight” and had picked up “Get Together” when it
was first released in 1967, two years before it hit the top 10 – and this album
contained both songs.
Interestingly
enough, I didn’t realize when I bought it that it was a live album, since
nothing on the outer packaging explicitly says so (although I might have
guessed from the length of the 6 tracks). Like the Allman’s effort, it was
recorded at the legendary Fillmore East in New York (over three nights in
1969). Turned out the Youngbloods were a pretty great jam band in their own
right, although with more of a folk-rock feel. I’ve never been a huge fan of
jam bands in general, since I’ve heard too many overextended performances that
simply meander aimlessly, but here the band manages to stretch out the songs
nicely from the original studio versions without losing the main thread (or the
listener). They also had a sense of humor; “Sugar Babe” is one of the few songs
in my music collection to feature a kazoo.
Best tracks: Sunlight, Ride The Wind, Sugar Babe
(basically side one of the original album)
1. Eva Cassidy – Live at Blues Alley (1996)
I’ve raved
enough about Eva Cassidy elsewhere, so I won’t repeat myself here. This was Eva’s
first solo album (on an obscure local label, naturally), and in fact the only
solo album released during her lifetime. Despite her shyness, she was a dynamic
live performer, and one who refused to limit her repertoire to a single genre;
she could mesmerize an audience whether doing jazz, blues, standards, folk, or
soul. In addition to Eva’s vocals, the arrangements and band on the album are
superb. This set doesn’t include “Over The Rainbow”, but otherwise is a great
introduction to her work.
Best
tracks: People Get Ready, Stormy Monday,
Blue Skies, Fields Of Gold
