Nile

To complete their reissue programme The Blue Nile again worked alongside long term producer/engineer partner Calum Malcolm. This 2CD deluxe set, features all nine tracks remastered plus a bonus disc featuring four previously unreleased songs plus two extended remixes - over 32 minutes of new music!

Willie Nile, The Bottom Line Archive 1980-2000, is two disc set, separated by a 20 year gap, and is a great example of Nile's long term staying power, and the loyalty that Bottom Line owner/curator, Allan Pepper (booker, or talent buyer does not suffice) extends to the artists that he really believes in. Exhibit a is this double-disc affair, highlighting two distinct eras in Nile's 35-year career. It is worth noting that one of the primary reasons we can enjoy the temporal contrasts contained in this collection is simply because, when Willie was ready to come back, Allan Pepper was just as ready to welcome him back to The Bottom Line. It was a second home for me, gushes Nile. Allan and the whole vibe of the club was so musician-friendly and warm. It was just the best place to play for that reason.

For a few years in the early '80s, Willie Nile had "next big thing" written all over him; at a time when the music biz was moving from its search for the "new Dylan" to the "new Springsteen," Nile had the look and the smart wordplay of the former along with the rocker's instincts and blazing passion of the latter, and he seemed destined for the big time. Nile made three albums before (two for Arista, one for Columbia) before the major-league recording industry decided they didn't know what to do with him after all, which seems to have been a matter of poor marketing rather than the quality of his work.

For a few years in the early '80s, Willie Nile had "next big thing" written all over him; at a time when the music biz was moving from its search for the "new Dylan" to the "new Springsteen," Nile had the look and the smart wordplay of the former along with the rocker's instincts and blazing passion of the latter, and he seemed destined for the big time. Nile made three albums before (two for Arista, one for Columbia) before the major-league recording industry decided they didn't know what to do with him after all, which seems to have been a matter of poor marketing rather than the quality of his work.

After releasing a pair of fine albums for Arista, Willie Nile signed a deal with Geffen Records in 1982, but a dispute with the label put Nile's recording career in limbo, and he ended up not making an album until he struck a deal with Columbia and released Places I Have Never Been in 1991. While in many respects Nile's debut was the purest expression of his music, Places I Have Never Been is where he really nailed the elements of record making; unlike the lean, stark textures of Willie Nile or the overcooked bombast of Golden Down, Places I Have Never Been boasts a sound and an approach that really flatter Nile's songs, and it's certainly his most eclectic and musically adventurous major-label set. T-Bone Wolk and Stewart Lerman produced the album with Nile, and though there's a bit more polish on these tracks than they really need, the team also matched up Nile with some stellar studio players (as well as some Grade-A guest stars, among them Roger McGuinn and Richard Thompson), and they fill out Nile's arrangements with a lot more finesse than on his previous sets.

Willie Nile's style has never been monochromatic, either as a songwriter or a performer, but over the course of a recording career that was launched in 1980, two things have been consistent – the guy clearly loves rock & roll, and he sure likes guitars (Nile even released an album called House of a Thousand Guitars). So was anyone out there expecting Nile to make an entire album of contemplative, midtempo acoustic numbers built around the guy playing piano? In many respects, If I Were a River upends the average fan's expectations about a Willie Nile album (especially after 2013's decisively rockin' American Ride), although the dramatic force of Nile's songwriting and the passion of his vocals should be more than familiar to anyone who has been listening to his music over the years