Paradise Hotel

Paradise Hotel

Editorial Reviews
Amazon.com
Warm reflections, strong convictions, and spiritual grace inform the veteran Texas-based troubadour Eliza Gilkyson's latest, Paradise Hotel. Offerings are even more eclectic than usual, with the Spanish-sung border balladry of "Bellarosa," a surprise cover of World Party's "Is It Like Today," and the hymn-like original "Requiem" extending Gilkyson's interpretive range. She sticks closer to straightforward country on "Calm Before the Storm" (with vocal harmony from Shawn Colvin) and the album-opening "Borderline," while returning to her folk roots on "Jedidiah 1777" and the title track (though the latter finds her humming a coda that evokes Bach or Procol Harum, depending on the listener's frame of reference). The album's most powerful track, "Man of God," represents Gilkyson's strongest political statement to date, an indictment of religious hypocrisy that uses Christianity to justify war, with Colvin, Marcia Ball, Slaid Cleaves, and Ray Wylie Hubbard among those offering chorus support. --Don McLeese

Product Description
Paradise Hotel is Eliza Gilkyson's fourth release on the Red House label and follows her 2004 Grammy nominated and critically lauded "Land of Milk and Honey." Her most personal album to date, it features songs that artfully reveal the roots of her progressive patriotism, comment on the direction our world is headed and peel back the thin layers obscuring the heart of what matters in these complex times.

One of the CD's most powerful tracks, "Jedidiah 1777," tells of Gilkyson's ancestral grandfather, Brigadier General Jedidiah Huntington, who fought alongside George Washington in the Revolutionary War. Based on a stirring collection of actual correspondence sent by General Huntington from the battlefield to his father and brothers (also enlisted in the army and equally committed to the cause), the song directly quotes the letters in its lyrics.

Shifting her focus from past to present, the song "Man of God" is a scathing indictment of the current administration's use of religion to manipulate the public. The song is driven by her brother Tony Gilkyson's (of L.A. punk band "X") rattlesnake of a guitar solo and a chorus of vocal support from an all-star Austin cast including Ray Wylie Hubbard, Slaid Cleaves, Marcia Ball, Shawn Colvin, Anna Egge, Jeff Plankenhorn and others.

The title track, "Paradise Hotel," is an atmospheric journey down the winding roads of human experience led by Mike Hardwick's haunting guitar. Other highlights include an infectious cover of World Party's "Is It Like Today," a honky-tonk duet with Shawn Colvin on "Calm Before The Storm," and "Requiem," a soothing invocation of compassion that was written in response to the 2004 tsunami devastation.

Paradise Hotel

Tracks:

Borderline
Paradise Hotel
Man Of God
Jedidiah 1777
Bellarosa
Think About You
Is It Like Today
Calm Before The Storm
Requiem
When You Walk On

Amazon.com

Warm reflections, strong convictions, and spiritual grace inform the veteran Texas-based troubadour Eliza Gilkyson's latest, Paradise Hotel. Offerings are even more eclectic than usual, with the Spanish-sung border balladry of "Bellarosa," a surprise cover of World Party's "Is It Like Today," and the hymn-like original "Requiem" extending Gilkyson's interpretive range. She sticks closer to straightforward country on "Calm Before the Storm" (with vocal harmony from Shawn Colvin) and the album-opening "Borderline," while returning to her folk roots on "Jedidiah 1777" and the title track (though the latter finds her humming a coda that evokes Bach or Procol Harum, depending on the listener's frame of reference). The album's most powerful track, "Man of God," represents Gilkyson's strongest political statement to date, an indictment of religious hypocrisy that uses Christianity to justify war, with Colvin, Marcia Ball, Slaid Cleaves, and Ray Wylie Hubbard among those offering chorus support. --Don McLeese

Album Description

Paradise Hotel is Eliza Gilkyson's fourth release on the Red House label and follows her 2004 Grammy nominated and critically lauded "Land of Milk and Honey." Her most personal album to date, it features songs that artfully reveal the roots of her progressive patriotism, comment on the direction our world is headed and peel back the thin layers obscuring the heart of what matters in these complex times.

Customer Reviews:

I guess it can get worse.......2007-05-27

More nice melodies, and then an all-thumbs attempt to be "political" and throw everything from "homophobe" to "corporate cronies" into a song. No sense of submission to rhythm, melody, nor rhyme. Given the political divide, I'm sure this gets hoot and hollers from the "hurray for our side" folks. Let's all hope Amazon keeps its reviews for another 50 years, for I guarantee that we will look back at Bush with gratitude for seeing the threats and meeting them like a man, and a "man of God."

Talented But Tedious.......2007-01-29

Eliza Gilkyson sings in a weary and breathy croak that is sometimes engaging, but frequently tiresome. While I appreciate her sincerity, and also the virtuosity of the band members, the songwriting is the glaring weakness. While the poetry occasionally rises above the banal, the music is rarely compelling. In the final analysis, I found a modicum of talent in Eliza and her musicians, but nothing that makes me want to listen to any of this more than a few times.

Paradise Hotel.......2006-11-10

I could not tell by the one listening selection ("Requiem")that the recording would be more of a country folk style, but I am now a big fan of Eliza's.
Upbeat, rich recording. Strong, beautiful lyrics.
Generally, a lovely discovery.

Man of God........2006-10-26

The record would deserve five stars, but "Man of God" is only a political rant with no base upon reality. The U.S.A. is in a war that Ms. Gilkyson may not like, but at least from our part it is not religious.

Spiritual maturity.......2006-07-18

On the evidence of "Paradise Hotel" alone, Eliza Gilkyson could be our most spiritually mature songwriter. Her words lament the drive to plunder and exploit, without wasting energy on self-absorbed emotionalism, and her sensibility lives in the here and now. She knows that the best parables are images ("he who is without sin, let him cast the first stone"), and that grace and redemption are always within our grasp -- that they cannot be stolen, only forfeited. Her songs become the mistress of our hearing, for weeks. And, like her, what she says is ageless.

Average customer rating:

"Richard Alden", best of the best!

Best of Broadway: There's No Business

Manufacturer: Reader's Digest
ProductGroup: Music
Binding: Audio CD

General | Opera & Vocal | Styles | Music

General | Musicals | Broadway & Vocalists | Styles | Music

General | Broadway & Vocalists | Styles | Music

General | Soundtracks | Styles | Music

General | Vocal Pop | Pop | Styles | Music

4-for-3 Broadway & Vocalists | 4-for-3 Music | Stores | Music

4-for-3 Classical | 4-for-3 Music | Stores | Music

4-for-3 Pop | 4-for-3 Music | Stores | Music

4-for-3 Soundtracks | 4-for-3 Music | Stores | Music

4-for-3 All Music | 4-for-3 Music | Stores | Music
Similar Items:

Best of Broadway: Give My Regards To Broadway
Best of Broadway: Till There Was You
Best of Broadway: The Music of the Night
Best of Broadway: Anything Goes
Best of Broadway: The Impossible Dream

ASIN: B00006313P
Release Date: 2002-03-12

Tracks:

Annie Get Your Gun: There's No Business Like Show Business - London Promenade Orchestra
Walk A Little Faster: April In Paris
On Your Toes: There's A Small Hotel
Oklahoma: Oh, What A Beautiful Mornin'
Can-Can: It's All Right With Me
Showboat: Bill
Cotton Club Parade: I've Got The World On A String - Ed Ames
My Fair Lady: I've Grown Accustomed To Her Face - Richard Alden, His Piano and Orchestra
Stop The World - I Want To Get Off: What Kind Of Fool Am I? - Douglas Gamley, His Orchestra And Chorus
A Chorus Line: One
The Most Happy Fella: Medley: My Heart Is Full Of You / Standing On The Corner - London Promenade Orchestra
Knickerbocker Holiday: September Song - London Promenade Orchestra

Customer Reviews:

"Richard Alden", best of the best!.......2006-10-15

I bougth this CD only for the track #8, from my Fair Lady "I've grown accustomed to her face", played, arranged and directed by Richard Alden, the same Ronnie Aldrich. The arrange has a little more rithm than the version of Phase 4 Stereo in "The magic moods of Ronnie Aldrich". It sounds spectacular!
The CDs from Readers Digest have some themes from Ronnie and "Richard Alden", inedits and a treasures for who loves the music of that genius od the piano
The rest of the CD has pretty songs.

Average customer rating:

Hotel Paradise

ProductGroup: Music
Binding: Audio CD

General | Jazz | Styles | Music

Jazz | Imports | Stores | Music
ASIN: B0000AQVFW
Release Date: 2007-01-16

Average customer rating:

Paradise Hotel
Hiram Elliott
ProductGroup: Music
Binding: Audio CD

General | Blues | Styles | Music
ASIN: B000OA54MK

Product Description

1 Paradise Hotel 2 Everybody's Missing 3 Hometown Girl 4 Not Your Fool 5 Let the New World Dance 6 When I Die (And go to Heaven) 7 Rosalie 8 Hallelujah Mountain 9 The Sunday Parade

Music Review:

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