The Street Was Always There

The Street Was Always There

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.

The Street Was Always There

The Street Was Always There,Eric Andersen,Appleseed Records,Folk,Folk & Traditional,Folk-Rock,One of America's foremost singer-songwriters revitalizes classic songs and forgotten gems, both political and poetic, by his fellow songwriters, performers and friends from the '60s heyday of Greenwich Village.,Political Folk,Pop,Singer/Songwriter

The Street Was Always There
Average customer rating:

My Name is the Real Rating for This CD

I don't know what took me so long, but this is a gem

enduring songs from an American moment

The Street Was Always There
Eric Andersen
Manufacturer: Appleseed Records
ProductGroup: Music
Binding: Audio CD

General | Folk | Styles | Music
Traditional Folk | Folk | Styles | Music
Singer-Songwriters | Pop | Styles | Music
Folk Rock | Rock | Styles | Music
General | Classic Rock | Styles | Music
Similar Items:

Waves

Beat Avenue

You Can't Relive the Past

Memory of the Future

Blue River

ASIN: B0002PUHBU
Release Date: 2004-09-21

Tracks:

Little Bit Of Rain
These 23 Days In September
Universal Soldier
Johnny Half-Breed
Waves Of Freedom
I Ain't Marching Anymore
Louise
Misty Roses
White Boots Marching In A Yellow Land - Wyclef Jean
A Hard Rain's A-Gonna Fall - Carole Sylvan
Many A Mile
The Other Side Of This Life
The Street Was Always There
Phil Ochs Speaks

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

Album 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.

Customer Reviews:

My Name is the Real Rating for This CD.......2006-02-04

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.

I don't know what took me so long, but this is a gem.......2005-10-25

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.

enduring songs from an American moment.......2004-09-28

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.

Music Review:

Music Review

music review

Recommended Music:

Mona Lisa Overdrive [Import]

Songs from the Heart

Stelle Della Lirica, Vol. V: Famous Love Duets

Nuf Said [Original recording remastered]

The Usual Bandidos

That Old Feeling [Import]

Strike-A-Chord, Vol. 2

The Romantic Approach, Volume 3: Music from Germany

The Complete Charlie Rich on Hi Records [Import]

Sin Miedo

Take Me With You!

Os Reis Do Ritmo [Import]

The Fashion Club [Import]

Living Proof: Firts things First

Crazy Eyes