Music

Music
"Eric Andersen is a great ballad singer." Bob Dylan, Oslo Spectrum	Eric Andersens first ever gig at The Coffee Gallery, North Beach, San Francisco 1963	ROBERT PALMER’S ALBUM NOTES FOR GHOSTS UPON THE ROAD: I first spotted Eric Andersen in the Kettle of Fish, a bar and folksinger’s hangout on Greenwich Village’s MacDougal Street, in the summer of ‘65. I was fresh from the deep South and had been in New York City for all of a couple of hours when a friend suggested visiting the Kettle of Fish to "meet the gang." I seem to remember Dylan being in and out, and I know I met David Blue and the Holy Modal Rounders. I didn’t get to meet Eric that night, but he was hard to miss. Six feet tall, rail thin, long dark hair, deep brown eyes- Eric was a striking-looking dude, a fact that was not lost on the ladies who were hanging at the Kettle of Fish that night. I knew who the guy was; I’d been playing his early songs in a folk-rock band, and "Violets Of Dawn" was a special favorite. Only every time I got the notion to go over and strike up a conversation, Eric was surrounded by women. That part hasn’t changed much in the intervening years. But as Eric would say, "we won’t go into that." What we can and should go into is who Eric Andersen is, where he’s been, and what he’s contributed to the crazy-quilt of American vernacular music. In the sixties, Eric’s involvement in the Cambridge, San Francisco and Greenwich Village folk scenes resulted in his being tagged a "folksinger." Later, in the seventies, classic albums like Blue Riveron Columbia got him lumped with the likes of James Taylor in the singer-songwriter bag. By the late seventies, folkies and singer-songwriters were perceived as being out-of-fashion. Like so many artists before him, Eric travelled to Europe, where he has released a number of albums, scored a film, written a playand some stories, and, always, worked on new songs. And now Eric Andersen is back. The craft, emotional depth, and unmistakable honesty of Eric Andersen’s songs, old and new, are the measure of the man. Musical fads and media attention have come and gone. But early in his life, Eric "dreamed my life would roll on forever, like some great plain in the west," and he has held on to that dream throughout his life of constant motion and creativity. The songs are Eric Andersen’s made flesh. Eric’s birthday is Valentine’s Day. (It’s fraught with no irony," he maintains.) He grew up mostly in Amherst, New York, where his early musical inspirations were first-generation rock-and-rollers. "I saw Elvis Presley in Buffalo Memorial Auditorium, wearing his gold suit, " Eric remembers. "The Everly Brothers came to my highschool for a hop. So in the beginning my real fascination was through those guys. But then we went into folk music-type things. In high school I had a little folk quartet. We did Weavers stuff, Woody Guthrie stuff, Cisco Houston. We played dances. But we were all literary freaks, too, so we were reading Baudelaire, James Joyce, Rimbaud. " In his brutally honest autobiographical song "Ghosts Upon The Road," Eric puts these early folk and literary influences in perspective. "Ramblin’ Jack was wild," he sings, "but Lowell Jack was first/ and I still shiver from the words." Following Kerouac’s example, Eric dropped out of college and hit the road supporting himself "mowing lawns and jukin’ in a band" and living in a succession of beatnik crash pads and abandoned buildings in Cambridge, the San Francisco Bay area, and then, New York’s lower easr side, where, his song "Ghosts" tells us, "my soul felt like an empty lot," and one night, "I almost jumped from a sixth floor roof." Many of the friends he made in those years failed to make it to middle age, but Eric survived to chronicle his wanderings. He began to first attract attention as a singer and songwriter in New York, where he recorded his seminal first albums, Today is the Highway and Bout Changes n’ Things, for Vanguard. The latter album included "Violets of Dawn" which rapidly became a folk-rock standard. There were rave reviews in folk and general interest publications, including The New York Times, whose critic Robert Shelton called Andersen "a writer and performer of the first-rank... Eric Andersen has that magical element called star quality." Bout Changes n’ Things, Eric’s second album, included one of his most enduring tunes, "Thirsty Boots," which became an anthem of the mid-sixties civil rights movement and was recorded by Judy Collins. Other early Andersen songs were recorded by Judy Collins. the Blues Project, Peter Paul and Mary, the Kingston Trio, Fairport Convention, Linda Ronstadt, John Denver, Rick Nelson, Pete Seeger, and the Grateful Dead. This heterogeneous list of performers suggests that Andersen was never really a folk singer in the classic sixties topical-poet sense. "Thirsty Boots" notwithstanding, his writing was always personal and introspective, concerned with living, feeling, thinking, basic human emotions and humjan values. This quality helped him make a smooth transition from the acoustic-style Vanguard albums to full-blown folk-rock (most notably on the classic 1973 Columbia lp Blue River) and country-rock (preserved on severalseventies albums recorded in Nashville). But when the original folk scene fragmented, so did Eric’s original audience. Music business moguls began suggesting to him that his timeless songs and straightforward performing style were out of date. Undaunted, Eric just kept writing and performing. But imposed stereotypes can take on a life of their own. When I finally did meet Eric Andersen, in New York City’s blues club Tramps in the early 80’s, I still thought of him as a sixties folk troubadour. I wanted to talk about "Violets of Dawn." He wanted to talk about African rhythms, jazz pianists, the fine points of intonation, and a film scoring project he was working on that entailed writing for a combination of Middle Eastern instruments and European symphony orchestra. The score was for the Belgian film "Istanbul," starring Brad Dourif. It’s sweeping string lines (recorded by the string players of the Belgian Symphony Orchestra) and overlay of Turkish stringed and percussion instruments served notice that Eric’s musical sensibility was wide-ranging, complete in itself, and utterly beyond catagory. Midnight Son and Tight in the Night, albums he recorded in Europe in the 80’s with electric band backing, confirmed this impression. Andersen’s experiences in Europe have profoundly affected his personal and musical outlook, as his new album, with songs like "Trouble in Paris," "Spanish Steps," and "Belgian Bar," so eloquently attests. Two successful Japanese tours have also had an impact. But Andersen’s early influences and the cosmopolitan wanderlust of his later life have only strengthened his sense of himself as a profoundly American artist. One night in Eric’s Greenwich Village apartment, where he lives when he isn’t on the road or at his second home in Norway, he interrupted a songwriting session with the brilliant Texas tunesmith Townes Van Zandt to clarify just this point. " I have this song about New Mexico," he explained, "but I wrote it in Norway. And sitting there looking out on all the snow, somehow that made the experience of travelling of travelling from Sante Fe to Taos that much more real to me. I started to think I could actually feel the sunlight on my arms, the heat, the dust. I could see the shadows, the color of the rocks. Europe is good for me as a writer, because you’re not distracted by all the things that happen to you- in New York especially. I thought I knew Eric Andersen’s music pretty well after listening to his performances, skull sessions, songs in progress. But this new album, conceived largely in Europe, recorded in New York, has handily exceeded my expectations. There’s a hard-won focus, and a deeply-felt commitment, evident in every performance, every finely-tuned lyric line. And there’s the almost feverish intensity of an obsessively creative man who’s spent his life living up to his own high expectations, rather than following fads or taking cues from the way other people perceive him. In "Ghosts Upon the Road," Eric sings about resisting to "the need to give everything a name," and we would do well to take the hint and forget folk, rock, pop, and other labels. This is great American music from one of the masters. And it’s about time. These CD's are available on line at: AMAZON.COM CD UNIVERSE. MUSIC BOULEVARD BARNES & NOBLE The Songbook can Be ordered from: Cherry Lane Music Company P.O. Box 430 Port Chester, New York 10573-0430
	ERIC ANDERSEN BLUE RIVER Produced by Norbert Putnam Columbia Legacy /Sony Newly Remastered and Reissued, 1999 Is It Really Love At All Pearl’s Goodtime Blues Wind And Sand Faithful Blue River (with Joni Mitchell) Florentine Sheila More Often Than Not Round The Bend Come To My Bedside Why Don't You Love Me Like You Used To Do "Eric’s finest hour." Lenny Kaye, Rolling Stone 4 stars "Best example of the 70’s songwriter movement." Rolling Stone Record Guide
	ERIC ANDERSEN COLLECTION " (Arista re-mastered album compilation of "Be True To You" and "Sweet Surprise") Produced by Tom Sellers Archive Recordings (Sept. 4, 1997) Moonchild Riversong Be True To You Ol’ 55 (with Jackson Browne) Time Run Like A Freight Train Liza Light The Candle Woman She Was Gentle (with Joni Mitchell) Love Is Just A Game Lost In A Song How It Goes Down At The Cantina Sweet Surprise Love Will Meet Again I Shall Go Unbounded Violets Of Dawn Thirsty Boots (last 3 tracks recorded live at the Bitter End) Sunshine and Flowers (bonus track)
	ERIC ANDERSEN 'BOUT CHANGES & THINGS Vanguard Violets Of Dawn Girl I Love, The That's Alright Mama Thirsty Boots Hustler, The Cross Your Mind I Shall Go Unbounded Champion At Keeping Them Rolling Hey Babe, Have You Been Cheatin' 1Blind Fiddler Close The Door Lightly When You Go My Land Is A Good Land
	ERIC ANDERSEN TODAY IS THE HIGHWAY Vanguard Records Today's The Highway Dusty Box Car Wall Time For My Returning Plains Of Nebrasky-O Looking Glass Never Coming Home Come To My Bedside Baby Please Don't Go Everything Ain't Been Said Bay Of Mexico Song To J.C.B. Bumblebee
	ERIC ANDERSEN GHOST'S UPON THE ROAD Produced by Steve Addabbo and Eric Andersen Gold Castle-Virgin, Europe/ Re-issue Plump Records Belgian Bar Spanish Steps Starts With A Lie Trouble In Paris Listen To The Rain (with Shawn Colvin) Ghosts Upon The Road Too Many Times Carry Me Away Six Senses Of Darkness Irish Lace "This is great music from one of the masters." Robert Palmer, former chief music critic of the New York Times and author of Deep Blues. "Music of rare intelligence and finesse; the autobiographical ten-minute title track is narrative songwriting at it’s richest- and the entire set stands as one of the best albums of the 1980’s." Rolling Stone Record Guide. Four 1/2 stars Rolling Stone.
	ERIC ANDERSEN STAGES, THE LOST ALBUM Album Sony/Legacy Produced by Norbert Putnam. Bonus tracks produced by Eric Andersen and Steve Addabbo. Baby I’m Lonesome Moonchild Riversong Can’t Get You Out Of My Life Woman She Was Gentle (with Joan Baez) Time Run Like a Freight Train It’s Been a Long Time Wild Crow Blues Be True To You I Love To Sing My Ballads But They Only Wanna Hear Me Rock ‘n Roll (with Leon Russell) Dream To Rimbaud Make It Last Lie With Me Soul Of My Song "Stages, the legendary ‘lost album,’ reveals itself indeed as a masterwork." Rolling Stone Record Guide. 4 Stars. "It is an impressive record." Stephen Holden, The New York Times
	ERIC ANDERSEN TIN CAN ALLEY Vanguard Tin Can Alley, Pt. 1 16 Year Grudge Miss Lonely Are You Blue Mary Sunshine Honey Just A Little Something Rollin' Home On The Edge Of You Broken Hearted Mama Hello Sun A Woman Is A Prism Tin Can Alley, Pt. 2
	THE BEST OF ERIC ANDERSEN Vanguard Records. My Land Is A Good Land Hey Babe, Have You Been Cheatin' Thirsty Boots Hustler, The Close The Door Lightly Song To J.C.B. Dusty Box Car Wall Looking Glass Bumblebee Violets Of Dawn Eyes Gently Rolling Just A Country Dream All I Remember Is You Rollin' Home Miss Lonely Are You Blue Broken Hearted Mama Woman Is A Prism, A Hello Sun 3 1/2 Stars, Rolling Stone Record Guide
	MEMORY OF THE FUTURE Appleseed Records (U.S. and World) Normal Records (Germany, Austria, Switzerland) Produced by Eric Andersen, Howie Epstein, Robert Aaron, Jonas Fjeld and Ingar Helgesen Sudden Love Foghorn Rain Falls Down in Amsterdam Blue Heart Goin Gone Memory of the Future Sex With You Chinatown No Man's Land When I'm Gone Hills of Tuscany Album release: November 19, 1998 Europe, Asia, Australia: January 15, 1998 "Eric Andersen is one of our finest singers and songwriters, in the literal sense." David Fricke, Senior Editor Rolling Stone Magazine, from the liner notes of Memory of the Future.
	VIOLETS OF DAWN Vanguard Records (79539-2), 1999 Boot of Blue Rambler’s Lament Violets of Dawn Thirsty Boots Hey Babe, Have You Been Cheatin’ The Hustler Close The Door Lightly When You Go Song To J.C.B. Dusty Bix Car Wall Come To My Bedside Looking Glass Just A Country Dream Eyes Gently Rollin’ On The Edge of You All I Remember is You Rollin’ Home Miss Lonely Are You Blue Broken Hearted Mama Compilation Produced by Tom Vickers Liner Notes by Billy Altman
	YOU CAN'T RELIVE THE PAST Appleseed Records Produced by Eric Andersen Eyes Of The Immigrant You Can't Relive The Past Gonna Go Crazy Meadowlark Every Once In A Pale Blue Moon Stand Me Up Easy Dear Mama The Road Cold Country Night Train Magdalena The Blue March (The Iris) Possum Reprise Liner Notes by Anthony DeCurtis	Site Design: Lonnie Heller
	DANKO, FJELD, ANDERSEN Produced by Danko Fjeld Andersen and Ingar Helgesen Rykodisc Driftin' Away Blue Hotel One More Shot Blue River Judgement Day When Moring Comes To America Angels In The Snow Wrong Side Of Town Sick and Tired Last Thing On My Mind Blaze Of Glory "These three friends and musical soul-mates have forged their disparate backgrounds into a shared vision. Like the best bands, they reach out to us with one voice, and with a depth of feeling that seems to well up from the heart." Robert Palmer
	DANKO, FJELD, ANDERSEN Ridin' On The Blinds Produced by Danko Fjeld Andersen and Ingar Helgesen Rykodisc Driftin Away Blue Hotel One More Shot Blue River Judgement Day When Morning Comes To America Wrong Side Of Town Angels In The Snow Sick And Tired Last Thing On My Mind Blaze Of Glory "Danko Fjeld Andersen celebrates the best qualities of American music. The result is far greater than the sum of its already impressive parts." Anthony De Curtiss, Men’s Journal
The following two CD's are complilations including Eric Andersen
	KICKS JOY DARKNESS Rykodisc 1995 Recordings of the published and previously unpublished poetry of Jack Kerouac. Includes performances by: Jack Kerouac, William S. Burroughs, Morphine, Lydia Lunch, Matt Dillon, Michael Stipe, Hunter S. Thompson, Allen Ginsberg, Eddie Vedder, John Cale, Johnny Depp, and Patti Smith.
	WHAT'S THAT I HEAR Sliced Bread 1996 A Recorded compilation of Phil Ochs songs. Includes performances by: Magpie, Sammy Walker, Peter Yarrow, Iain Matthews, Arlo Guthrie, Tom Paxton, The Roches, John Wesley Harding, John Gorka, Billy Bragg, Dave Van Ronk, and Katy Moffatt.
ERIC ANDERSEN SONGBOOK: SELECTED SONGS Cherry Lane Music/ Distributed by Hal Leonard. Twenty songs with lyrics and guitar chords and musical arrangements for piano. Contains song notes by Eric Andersen and rare photographs. Introduction by William Ruhlmann. 96 pages.
	Blue River Close The Door Lightly Come To My Bedside Everything Ain’t Been Said Faithful Ghosts Upon The Road Irish Lace Is It Really Love At All Listen To The Rain Moonchild Riversong	Come Runnin’ Like a Friend Sheila Spanish Steps Thirsty Boots Time Run Like A Frieght Train Trouble In Paris Violets Of Dawn Wild Crow Blues Wind And Sand
	THE ROLLING STONE BOOK OF THE BEATS Hyperion Press 1999 Includes essays, photographs, and interviews on the Beat Generation by and with: David Amram, Lester Bangs, William S. Burroughs, Carolyn Cassady, Ann Charters, Ira	Cohen, Anthony De Curtis, Johnny Depp, Lawrence Ferlinghetti, Robert Frank, David Gahr, Allen Ginsberg, Richard Hell, Annie Leibovitz, Greil Marcus, Robert Palmer, Graham Parker, Lee Renaldo, Aram Saroyan, Patti Smith, and Hunter S. Thompson.

Last modified: 7/24/04 4:55 PM