John Prine & Mac Wiseman - Standard Songs for Average People
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Free Music Notes for Standard Songs for Average People
Free Music Review: less carol, more geritol
Hit: 2 Stars
I have loved John Prine ever since his first album, and Mac Wiseman has built a much-loved legacy, but "quirky" is a generous descriptor for this effort. Maybe they shoulda hung out around a backyard grill a few days before they recorded. Maybe they did, I don't know. As one earlier reviewer said, I really wanted to love this, but I felt as if I was just working too hard at it. The choice of songs from a pair of guys with their repertoires can always be second-guessed, but that isn't my criticism either. These are great songs. There just doesn't seem to be the energy I had hoped for. There's just too much Carol Lee and not enough juice. Maybe they weren't making the set I wanted them to, but it got over-produced into a time capsule insert, or something.
I wasn't looking for a squeaky-clean composite. That's not John Prine. Nor did I hope for bluegrass de luxe. That's not Mac Wiseman. I think it should be renamed "The Carol Lee Singers and Some Great Nashville Studio Pros Present a Period Piece for the Shower, featuring JP and MW."
OK, that's cold. But if I'm being unfair, it's in a time when the same Mac Wiseman can team up with Del McCoury and Doc Watson and produce a cleaner, more evocative collection Del Doc & Mac and Ricky Skaggs, 80-ish Doc and Earl Scruggs can make "Three Pickers." It's a shame this didn't come up to the same level.
Free Music Review: Top Shelf
Hit: 5 Stars
Totally top shelf, John Prine always sings the truth. Mr. Wiseman is new to me but they blend perfectly together. They present an album that can be played right through and enjoyed over and over again.
Music and poetry are combined to make an artform. I'm just a standard person but I know that if the art makes you feel something it's among the best. Of course, we all have different taste in art but this is an easy one, for everyone. John Prine challenges the world with a lot of his songs which, to me, are more like poems set to music. This album is a more of the "just for fun type". The title here is perfect. Try Great Days: The John Prine Anthology you'll love that too.
Free Music Review: Standard Songs for Average people
Hit: 5 Stars
I was glad to see something new out by Mac Wiseman. I was not familiar with John Prime, but he has a good strong voice and I thought they sounded good together. I would gladly buy it again.Free Music Review: CLOSE, BUT NO CIGAR
Hit: 3 Stars
I really wanted to like this album, I really did. I love John Prine and he is one of a handful of artists whose work I would buy without even hearing it or knowing anything about it. John Prine has a new album? Press that BUY NOW button! And there IS a lot to like about this album. The production is superb! I pop this in the car CD player and I don't have to touch the volume control. From the glorious opening notes of 'My Blue-Eyed Elaine', John, Mac and their musicians are in the car with me, crisp and clear and with a full-bodied sound that melts your bones. The engineering is a triumph. The arrangements and the musical backing is first class all the way. And few reviewers ever rate the cover art but in this case it is well worth mentioning. Matt Kelley and Matt Traughber should be winning a Grammy for this one.
So what stops this from being the five star album it should be? The pre-publicity tells us that it was Jack Clement who believed Prine and Wiseman were a match made in heaven. Praiseworthy as that idea may be, I don't feel that the chemistry, if it does exist, comes over in the finished product. Sure, both singers sound relaxed and at ease with the material, but the rapport doesn't extend to warmth (in my opinion) and that's what I really would have liked to hear. Another problem for me is that their voices are so similar that the interplay between them is lost.
Then there's the choice of songs. The phrase "neither fish nor fowl, nor good red herring" springs immediately to mind. Certainly there are many delights - 'Blue-Eyed Elaine', 'Don't be Ashamed Of Your Age', 'I Forgot To Remember To Forget' and 'The Blue Side Of Lonesome'. But these are interspersed with 'In The Garden' and 'Old Rugged Cross' which are lovely in themselves but would have been better in an album of similar material.
The significance of the Floyd Collins story is perhaps lost on me on the other side of the world, but certainly The Floyd Collins Web Page gives more information than I ever thought I needed. The 1925 song 'Death Of Floyd Collins' may be an authentic piece of Americana but its subject is very morose and I'm not convinced the song needed a new version.
And 'Saginaw, Michigan', I'm sure, is intended as a light-hearted joke, but to me there's always been something mean-spirited about the lyric:
"The greedy fool is a looking for the gold I never found.
It serves him right and no-one here is missing him."
Resurrecting Kris Kristofferson's 'Just The Other Side Of Nowhere' was a good idea (why don't more contemporary singers of whatever genre open the Kristofferson songbook?), but I feel it adds to the unevenness of the material. I would favour a more thematic approach to the song choices - fifties classics for preference. My choice for doyen of albums in this genre is "One For The Road" by Willie Nelson and Leon Russell. There, the choice of songs and the overall tone of the album seem to me to be a perfect fit.
I know other reviewers love it and it will garner many fans. But for me, it's a case of close, but no cigar. A pity, because I really DID want to like this album. So what's next, John - 'cos my finger will always be hovering near that BUY NOW button.
Free Music Review: Disappointed Prine Fan
Hit: 1 Stars
I have just about every other thing John Prine has recorded and thought I needed this album too. Wrong. There's not an interesting song here so don't waste your money.