EVERYONE agreed that this was a great album,
back when it came out. I mean EVERYBODY -- Rolling
Stone, Time Magazine, radio reviewers on NBC and NPR, local reviewers,
even Lou Reed...
So it was 1989, and i was in New Orleans to see Fred LeBlanc
{now
front man of brilliant New Orleans band
Cowboy
Mouth} do his last gigs as Dash Rip Rock's drummer, and i
needed some music to listen to on the way home to Atlanta.
I bought three CDs at Tower Records and hit the Interstate.
I don't remember what the other two CDs even were, but i DO remember that,
by the time i made Atlanta (a nine-hour drive) i had listened to this CD
at least three times all the way through.
I still listen to it every so often -- "200 More Miles" is absolutely brilliant,
their versions of both "I'm So Lonesome I Could Cry" and "Walking After Midnight"
are eerily ghostly, and their version iof "Sweet Jane' is the third-best
i've ever heard (after Reed's own version with the Velvets and 2 Nice Girls'
seamless merging of the song with a Joan Armatrading tune -- Reed has been
quoted as saying that if he'd heard the Girls' version before he heard the
Junkies', he might not have called CJ's the best cover he'd ever heard...)
A brilliant set of performances with breath-taking sound (though a bit peculiar,
since they had to run Margo's mike thru one of the instrument amps) showing
a brilliant band at the beginning of its best years.
If you're buying only one of their albums, this is the one to
buy.
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