Sylvi Browne

Jackson Browne went on tour in 1977 with a remarkable group of musicians to create an album about the road, on the road. The result was Running On Empty, a musical portrait of life on tour that is as brutally honest as it is achingly beautiful. Paul Nelson wrote in his original Rolling Stone review of the album that "Browne has consciously created a documentary, as brightly prosaic as it is darkly poetic, with a keen eye for the mundane as well as the magical."

Theoretically, assembling a Jackson Browne greatest-hits collection would be easy, but The Next Voice You Hear: The Best of Jackson Browne proves that isn't necessarily the case. Boasting 13 tracks, plus two new songs, The Next Voice You Hear contains some of Browne's biggest hits – "Doctor My Eyes," "Running on Empty," "Somebody's Baby," "Tender Is the Night" – but it leaves just as many off, including "Rock Me on the Water," "Here Come Those Tears Again," "Stay," "Boulevard," "Lawyers in Love," and "For America." Of course, singles only told half the story with Browne, and many of his greatest songs were only available as album tracks. Therefore, it makes sense that album cuts like "These Days," "Late for Sky," and "The Pretender" are present, but there are still a number of equally good, if not better, cuts that are left off. As a result, The Next Voice You Hear is merely adequate for casual Browne fans, but it's nowhere near definitive.

Recorded live at the Casino de Montreux in Switzerland, this 1982 broadcast features 19 Browne performances: Somebody's Baby; That Girl Could Sing; Fountain of Sorrow; For Everyman; Knock on Any Door; Your Bright Baby Blues; Tender Is the Night; For a Dancer; and more.

Duncan Browne's self-titled second album plays like a direct sequel to his debut long-player, Give Me Take You; he uses the same acoustic guitar and writes in a similar idiom, especially on tracks like "Country Song" and "The Martlet." Indeed, apart from the fact that it's generally better recorded, most of Duncan Browne could easily have slotted into the earlier album; the only exceptions are the more elaborately produced songs, such as "Ragged Rain Life," with its electric guitar sound, the keyboard-embellished "Babe Rainbow," and the bluesier, Dylan-esque "Journey," which was a substantial hit in England. Browne's style elsewhere on the record is unique unto himself, built around hauntingly beautiful melodies, mostly in a folk idiom, with some choice results, including the exquisite "Over the Reef" and "My Old Friends"…