We Shall Overcome: The Seeger Sessions is an unusual Bruce Springsteen album in a number of ways. First, it's the first covers album Springsteen has recorded in his three-decade career, which is a noteworthy event in itself, but that's not the only thing different about We Shall Overcome. Springsteen, a notorious perfectionist who has been known to tweak and rework albums numerous times before releasing them (or scrapping them, as the case may be), pulled together the album quickly, putting aside a planned second volume of the rarities collection Tracks after discovering a set of recordings he made in 1997 for a Pete Seeger tribute album called Where Have All the Flowers Gone: The Songs of Pete Seeger. Enthralled by this handful of tracks -- one of which, "We Shall Overcome," appeared on the tribute -- Springsteen decided to cut a whole album of folk tunes popularized by Pete Seeger. He rounded up 13 musicians, including some who played on those 1997 sessions, and did two one-day sessions in late 2005 and early 2006, swiftly releasing the resulting album that April. As Bruce stresses in his introductory liner notes, these were live recordings, done with no rehearsals, and We Shall Overcome does indeed have an unmistakably loose feel, and not just because you can hear the Boss call out chord changes in a handful of songs. This music is rowdy and rambling, as the group barrels head-first into songs that they're playing together as a band for the first time, and it's hard not to get swept up along in their excitement. Springsteen has made plenty of great records, but We Shall Overcome is unique in its sheer kinetic energy; he has never made a record that feels as alive as this.
Tracklist
Wednesday, April 26, 2006
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
Popular Posts of the Week
-
History They originally called themselves The Reactionaries , with additional band member and singer Martin Tamburovich. According to Watt, ...
-
A powerhouse record set full of what made the Doors important. Strong lyrics married to distinct musical passages; storytelling at its' ...
-
Calexico is an indie rock band known for playing an eclectic variety of music. Its two main members are Joey Burns and John Convertino, wh...
-
Mike Stroud and Evan 'E*vax' Mast have finally completed work on their second album, humbly titled 'Classics'. They'd h...
-
Exciter is Depeche Mode's tenth full-length album, which was released on May 14, 2001 in the UK and May 15 in the US. It uses more digi...
-
A collection of all of Pavement 's low-fidelity early singles and EPs, which feature considerably less melody than Slanted and Enchante...
-
Who Made Who is a hard rock album by Australian band AC/DC , released as the soundtrack to the Stephen King movie Maximum Overdrive . ...
1 COMMENTS:
01 old dan tucker
02 jesse james
03 mrs mcgrath
04 o mary dont you weep
05 john henry
06 erie canal
07 jacobs ladder
08 my oklahoma home
09 eyes on the prize
10 shenandoah
11 pay me my money down
12 we shall overcome
13 froggie went a courtin
Post a Comment