Where Things Come Back

Various Artists - Woodstock - Back to the Garden: The Definitive 50th Anniversary Archive (2019) {38CD Box Set Rhino X3CDWO001}
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© 1969, 2019 Rhino Records | X3CDWO001
Rock / Psychedelic / Acid Rock / Blues Rock / Folk / Rock & Roll

Fifty years after the three-day concert made rock’n’roll history, a gargantuan, 38-disc set attempts to tell the full story of the event for the very first time. The mythological status of 1969’s Woodstock Music and Arts Festival can sometimes feel overpowering. The festival is the ultimate expression of the 1960s. Moments from the three-day concert have crystallized as symbols of the era, with details like Richie Havens’ acoustic prayer for freedom, Roger Daltrey’s fringed leather vest, or Jimi Hendrix’s “Star Spangled Banner” held up as sacred countercultural relics.

It's a statement of Johnny Cash's longevity that the eight albums collected here – each one a concept collection devoted to American historical themes – were considered worthy and viable commercial releases back when, and that most were very successful. This four-CD set assembles Ride This Train, Blood, Sweat and Tears, Bitter Tears, Ballads of the True West, Mean as Hell! (Johnny Cash Sings Ballads from the True West), America: A 200 Year Salute in Story and Song, From Sea to Shining Sea, and The Rambler, all in one place. They fit together as a body of work, and he put a lot of heart into all of these songs individually…

It is a hefty box in every sense: 13 CDs, supplemented with two DVDs, accompanied by a gorgeous hardcover book and a variety of tchotchkes, including a poster that traces the twisted family trees and time lines of the band and, just as helpfully, replicas of legal documents that explain why the group didn't retain rights to its recordings for years…

Don't take the title of John Mayer's Heavier Things literally. Mayer offers nothing heavy on the follow-up to his breakthrough hit, Room for Squares – nothing heavy in the music and nothing heavy in the lyrics. No, Mayer is smooth, slick, and streamlined on his second or third album (it all depends if you count his 1999 debut, Inside Wants Out, half of which was re-recorded for Room for Squares, which itself was released in two different incarnations), playing things straight and following the blueprint his big radio hit, "Your Body Is a Wonderland," provided. The title Heavier Things does reflect his new directness, lacking the lithe playfulness that resulted in a Hank Mobley joke, of all things, for an album title last time out.

It's kind of spooky how things come full circle. Who would have through that Donnie and Johnny Van Zant, brothers to one of rock & roll's true icons and heirs apparent to the Lynyrd Skynyrd legacy, would find themselves in a musical climate so friendly to the excesses of Southern rock in the 21st century? As it stands, nine years after their supposed one-off debut, the pair are not only going strong, they've had all of their previous recordings reissued as DualDiscs…