Ringo Starr, Dolly Parton and Merle Haggard are also included on the wide-ranging two-disc collection, out August 31st.
One Live Badger is the easier Badger album to find, and the one worth having anyway. As the album's title indicates, the band also took the unusual step of making their first album a live recording of original songs. It has aged very well – with all the energy of live performance, there's none of the usual studio excesses or noodling of the era. The Yes connection via Tony Kaye is abundantly evident; the album was co-produced by Yes singer Jon Anderson, uses long instrumental breaks and prominent Hammond organ solos, and features the obligatory Roger Dean cover art. Nonetheless, the brooding lyrics and soulful harmonies make comparisons to Traffic and Blind Faith a much closer musical match. The first half of the album is excellent, kicking off with the pleasingly hoarse vocals of David Foster on the full-tilt rocker "Wheel of Fortune" and the pensive "Fountain."
For his second release "GROOVE WARRIOR" on ESC Records, Guitarist Dean Brown has again put together a stellar group of musicians. Besides his critically aclaimed debut CD "HERE", he is best known for his work with Marcus Miller, Billy Cobham, David Sanborn, The Brecker Bros. and a veritable who's who in the electric jazz world. Dean has spent the last 20 years performing worldwide and has recorded on over 100 albums, including 4 Grammy Award winners.
On Dean Martin's previous album, (Remember Me) I'm the One Who Loves You, he had turned in an excellent version of Roger Miller's "King of the Road," and Lee Hazlewood wrote him a similar easygoing country-pop ballad about a drifter in "Houston," which he took into the Top 40 in the summer of 1965. The song therefore lent its name to his next album, handled, as usual, by producer Jimmy Bowen, although arranger/conductor Ernie Freeman was replaced by Bill Justis. Freeman had done the chart for "Everybody Loves Somebody," the record that launched Martin's 1960s comeback, but Justis proved he could write in a similar style, notably on "The First Thing Ev'ry Morning (And the Last Thing Ev'ry Night)," which shared its 1950s…
Essential: a masterpiece of progressive rock music.
A live album masterpiece. No other Yes live album comes close to this. As far as quality goes and the criticism it receives, I just don't get it.