Charlie Haden - Rambling Boy
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Free Music Notes for Rambling Boy
Free Music Review: This album is great.
Hit: 5 Stars
Don't think about buying this album, just buy it and listen closely top to bottom when you can really listen. The tunes, the singing, arrangement, solos, and vibe are a complete musical work of art.Free Music Review: loved it!
Hit: 5 Stars
Listened to a review of this CD on the "Sunday Morning". They were right on the spot with this CD. Fabulous. So glad it is in my CD collection.Free Music Review: This was a great gift!
Hit: 5 Stars
I bought this CD as a gift for my mother for Christmas. The harmonies of the Hayden sisters is perfection.Free Music Review: YeeeHaaaaaa, C+W and Folk Roots Album
Hit: 4 Stars
Customer review from the Amazon Vine™ Program (What's this?)
To quote the guys on sound opinions, burn it don't buy it. This is an outstanding album, some really great tracks. And there are some ear shattering awful tracks. Thus my recommendation that you use Amazon MP3 to download only the tracks you like, just don't buy the whole thing.
Overall, those of you reading this review probably already know this is Country and Western music from it's roots, way back in the Folk days, Ho Down, and Grand Ole Oprey. What you don't know, this album is recorded at near perfection. The sound is outstanding, each instrument is very well focused, clear and mixed to exactly the right volume. An incredible rarity these days. Decca is an old school label that is back, and boy did they spend the money on mixing and recording. Simply fabulous.
Garrison Keillor lovers will love this album. There's a fair amount of religous music in here, mostly about Jesus and the help somebody needs. So those tracks will appeal to the religious song lover. And there's some just darn good folk music in here.
What's to love about this disc, thankfully a whole lot. There are some incredible tracks on this album. Number 19 is just absolute perfection, Oh Shenandoah. I was actually almost crying listening to this track. Charlie Haden does not have a great voice, the guitar playing is not perfect, but oh the emotion. I loved this track so much. Download this one for sure.
Tracks 1, 2, 3, and 4 are worth amazing. Vince Gill on Rambling Boy is a huge surprise for me. He sounds like Woody Guthrie, only better. I was blown away by this track. The Acoustic Bass intro on track 3, 20/20 Vision is just perfection. I could hear each string being plucked, the tone was perfect. I enjoyed that so much. Bruce Hornsby is not exactly recognizable here, but that's OK. And Track 4 Roseanne Cash - she is cream, pure creamy smoothness enjoyment. This is just a beautiful song, beautifully recorded.
Track 6 Oh, Take Me Back, very pleasant song.
8 - The Fields of Athenry, is an enigma for me. Petra Haden has a beautiful perfect voice. I loved the first 4 minutes of simplicity, quiet beautiful background instrumentation. But then the song starts to build to this crascendo that is absolutely unnecessary. The last 3 minutes were just way too over done. Simplicity would have been much better here. A lovely song all the same.
9 - Oceans of Diamonds, I got a huge smile over this song. It's a fun simple song with a well matched vocal. One listen may be enough.
11- Voice from on High - I could have done without the heavy handed religious side to this song, but still Petra, Tanya, and Rachel Haden are remarkable together. Their voices blend so perfectly. It was a pleasure just to listen and ignore the lyrics.
13 - Road of Broken Hearts, Ricky Skaggs. Wonderful classic C+W / Folk music. I love the back beat against these sad lyrics. "You broke my heart but I refuse to cry.." made me smile.
14 - Is This America (Katrina 2005) - no clue how this instrumental relates to Katrina. I don't get it except for the title. Oh well, pretty song.
17. Seven Year Blues - oh the three female Hadens sound gorgeous together here.
Which tracks to avoid? And you should really run and hide from these turkeys.
5, Spiritual. This is just plain painful. Josh Haden repeats the word Jesus over and over and over and over again, ad nauseum. There is a very simple guitar intro that I swear a 12 year old could have done better. Sorry, this one just grated on me all the wrong ways.
7, You Win Again, Elvis Costello. Yes he does have a voice that can sing C+W, but no he does not deliver here at all. His voice is strained, and he and Pat Matheney seem to be at odds in this song.
10. He's Gone Away, Tanya Haden. This song required a much deeper, more mature voice. Tanya's voice has some roughness / flatness in the mid range, and can be a bit painful to listening.
12. Down by the Salley Gardens - Ruth Cameron. Oh I could only stand 30 seconds of this painful song. She is just trying too hard to sing, and I could not stand much more.
15. Tramp On The Street - Rachel Haden. She has a nice voice. But this song has the strangest phrasing I've ever heard. It's almost painful to listen to. It sort of stomps like somebody with no rythm is singing. "If.....Jesus should come......would......" with hard emphasis on the if and would. I don't understand this at all.
16. Old Joe Clark - second to the worst track on the disc. You all probably guessed this would be bad. Jack Black can't sing. The only time he sounds even remotely like he's singing is when he imitates Meatloaf imitating some other group, and he's trying to be funny. Country And Western - NO SIR, it is remarkably bad.
18. Old Haden Family Show - give me a break. This is an awful recording from a very scratched record (which can be easily cleaned up but I swear they added pops and scratches to make it sound more "authentic"). Listen one time to the "cute" little girl singing and you've had enough. It would pain me to listen to this disc and have to put up with the worst track on the disc, number 18. Skip it at all costs.
If you do buy this whole album, you will want to make your own mix. One listening to that Old Haden Family Show and you'll never listen to this disc again. Gorgeous recording. Mostly very beautiful singing and playing. And you have to love Country and Western from it's roots.
Free Music Review: Haden Family And Friends Country Roots Tribute
Hit: 4 Stars
Customer review from the Amazon Vine™ Program (What's this?)
Rambling Boy is tribute to Charlie Haden's country roots. While Haden is best known for his stand up bass work in jazz, his parents had a country music radio show when he was a small child. The track "Old Haden Family Show" is a short clip of two year old Charlie from back in those days. You could say that Rambling Boy brings Haden's career full circle, but that is only part of the story. Rambling Boy is about passing on the family tradition to his children: Josh, Petra, Tanya, and Rachel. Indeed half of the songs on this CD feature Haden, his wife Ruth Cameron, or one or more of his children. These tracks alone would make a very rich collection of songs, and the highlights for me were the ones where the Haden Triplets sing two and three part harmony such as "A Voice From On High" and "Singe Girl, Married Girl". Those familiar with the O' Brother, Where Are Thou? soundtrack will find the songs from the Triplets compare favorably with those of Emmy Lou Harris, Gretchen Wilson, and Lucinda Williams from O' Brother. The Triplets also each get a solo track with the highlight being Petra on "The Fields of Athenry". Her voice and delivery are in a word, striking.
However, the tracks featuring Haden's "Friends" don't always deliver as well as the "Family" tracks. There are some that sound great. Dan Tyminski, who provided George Clooney's vocals on "Man Of Constant Sorrow" in O' Brother, Where Art Thou?, sounds perfectly at home on "Ocean Of Diamonds". The same can be said for Ricky Skaggs on "Road Of Broken Hearts". Rosanne Cash and the ever versatile Elvis Costello also do a good job fitting in with the CD. On the other hand, Bruce Hornsby seems like a fish out of water on "20/20 Vision". Given the length of Rambling Boy this track could have been left off without losing anything. The other track that doesn't mesh very well on the CD is "Is This America? (Katrina 2005)" with Pat Metheny. Metheny's guitar sticks a little too close its jazz base, and unlike the vocal tracks there is nothing to balance it against the other instruments. It's not a bad song in of itself, but it is the answer to the question, "Which one of these is not like the other?". Both of these tracks are only minor detractions, and they are by no means a reason to pass this CD over.
Overall, Rambling Boy is a great CD that hearkens back to a day gone by. Haden shows that his talent as a bass player translates nicely from his jazz body of work to country with little effort. The songs on Rambling Boy are also good, clean fun. You won't find any objectionable material, and quite the contrary, there are many spirituals on here that have a strong Christian message such as "A Voice From On High" and "Spiritual". Fans of O' Brother, Where Art Thou? will find much to like as will fans of most traditional country and bluegrass music. Even if that doesn't sound like your cup of tea, I would encourage you to check out clips or entire songs that are available on line. As of this writing, Amazon is having a listening party so you can try before you buy. Give it a chance, and you may wind up finding something special that you would have otherwise passed up.
Download this: The Fields of Athenry