Album reviews: Eric Andersens 'Dance of Love and Death' Plus Cat Stevens and Wanda Jackson

For some reason, the folk singer/songwriter Eric Andersen is probably best for self-written classics such as “Dursty Boots”, “close the door easily when you go” and “Villets of Dawn”, all of which appeared on his second album from 1966, on his 1966-album, the album, the album from 1966, '' N '. These are great songs, but Andersen took many more outstanding recordings in the following years and decades, including numbers on albums such as Blue river (1972), Be loyal to you (1975), Ghosts on the street (1989) and You cannot experience the past (2000).

The now 82-year-old singer has recently published albums who use the works of the writers Albert Camus, Heinrich Böll and Lord Byron. He also served several live albums, including the great three-CD Woodstock under the stars (2020). Compared to previous years, however, it has hardly offered the original new material in the past two decades.

So far this is. Andersen has just published Dance of love and deathAnd it is a two-disc set with almost one and a half hours of music. He wrote all of his songs except “Cross of Gold”, the singer/songwriter Robin Batteau (who plays on the number violin and classic guitar). Versions of four of the other melodies have been released on concert -LPS, and two more have appeared on digital albums, but none of the remaining songs were previously published in any form.

Andersen stands in each of the 17 tracks of the collection at the top of its shape, all of which contain its distinctive, intimate singing and his haunting, elegantly constructed music. As usual, many of the most powerful texts by Andersen – as in “Immersing deeper in you” and “Map of the heart of a woman” – explain topics that relate to romantic love. But he also turns the eye into other directions here. “Singin 'Man”, for example, taps a hat on Buskers and seems to be in the music world in the early days. And in “after this life” he offers a carefree bucket list for his time in the hereafter, which would fit alongside John Prince “when I come to heaven”.

The long -time employee Steve Addabbo, who played important roles on other Andersen albums and produced LPS from artists such as Bob Dylan, Richard Shindell and Suzanne Vega, produced the set. Andersen plays the guitar, piano and occasional harmonica and is accompanied by more than a dozen other musicians, including Patti Smith guitarist Lenny Kaye, Bob Dylan Bassist Tony Garnier and multi-instrumentalists Addabbo and Larry Campbell. Andersen's wife Inga, who is committed to the album, adds a harmony singing to a Harmony vocals with her husband, which is called “at the end of the day” called “At the end of the day”. Several band members play string instruments -violin, viola and cello -that fit well with the powerful texts and vocals of the set.

Andersen has been serving a moving, powerful music for six decades. Dance of love and death leaves no doubt that he can still deliver.

Also remarkable

Cat Stevens (Yusuf)Present Saturnight: Live from Tokyo. Cat Stevens (also known as Yusuf) was at the height of his popularity when he appeared at the concert presented here in June 1974. The Remastered recording, originally only available in Japan, includes five top 20 singles and seven important album tracks.

From the 1970s Mona Bone Jakon Comes “Lady d'Arnville”, while the same year is superlative of the same year Tea for the Tillerman Results in “Wild World”, which appears 11th in the singles charts as well as “father and son”, “Hard Headed Woman” and “where the children play”. Out of Teaser and the fire cat (1971) carried out Steven's “Bitterblue” and “Peace Train”, the latter a No. 7 goal. “Sit”, a single No. 16 of Catch Bull at four (1972), is here, as well as “a bad penny”, “King of Trees” and the No. 10 hit “Oh very young”, all of Buddha and the chocolate box (1974). Also included is “Another Saturday Night”, a non-album cook cover that Stevens gave a hit no. 6 in 1974.

Saturn is far from the only CD on which you can find vintage live stevens material. The early programs For example, gathering 22 radio performances from the same period and expanded versions of several of his albums, which have been published in recent years, concert performances. This means that if you want a concise, hit -loaded taste of Stevens, as Stevens sounded on stage at the time, this well -recorded album will deliver.

Wanda JacksonPresent The classic album collection. Wanda Jackson is known as Queen of Rockabilly and, as Andrew Hickey states in his excellent Podcast series A history of rock music in 500 songsIt is “a towering figure in the genre”. It is also one of the most constant artists in popular music. Jackson, who still had a top -10 -Country hit during her high school, began to perform in 1948 and gave concerts until her retirement in early 2019 -71 years later.

This anthology extends over four CDs, collects the content of eight original LPS and has a playing time of almost five hours, but it was impossible to take all the highlights of a career for so long. Nevertheless, it shows a good job to present Jackson's most important time and her facility for rockabilly, rock and country. The 108 remastered tracks, all of which were recorded between the mid-1950s and the mid-1960s, include “Let's have a party”, their first rock'n'roll hit; “I have to know”, whose verses alternately cause classic land and the rockabilly, which were published by Sun Records. And the “Fujiyama Mama” highly okan, which led the charts in Japan. Here, too, there are more than a dozen songs written by Jackson, and cover of standards like Willie Nelson's “Funny Time Slips Away” and Hank Williams “I'm so lonely, I could cry”.

This is the place where you would like to understand why Jackson influenced many later agricultural and rock artists and why she deserved her introduction to the Rock'n'roll -hall of fame in 2009.