Lynyrd Skynyrd - Street Survivors
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Free Music Notes for Street Survivors
Free Music Review: Interesting album
Hit: 5 Stars
First of all, I agree with the guy who said that the live tracks are bootleg quality at best. I bought this album out of sheer curiosity and loyalty to the Skynyrd catalog. I would add that it seems disconcerting that MCA/Universal would revoke the fire cover out of respect for the families of Ronnie Van Zant, Steve Gaines, Cassie Gaines, and Dean Kilpatrick, then re-release the cover all these years later. Ronnie's and Steve's families are still alive, and I would almost like to get their take on this situation.Free Music Review: Kind Of A Rip off
Hit: 2 Stars
I don't get it. The single Cd of this great CD is very good. It gives you the CD in remastered sound, plus a few bonus cuts. A good value. This "Deluxe" edition gives you the original cd, and then the "Criteria" cd. Both the band and the record company felt the Criteria album was not acceptable, and one listen lets you know why. Then there are the bonus "live" cuts. Anyone expecting good sound is in for a shock. It a poorly recorded bootleg! This "Deluxe" package runs about $30.00 and the only good thing is the original Cd, which is a lot cheaper in the single disc edition. This is the record company trying to make a buck off this legendary band. Shame on them.Free Music Review: Pristine version of essential album, nice outtakes, bootleg-quality live tracks
Hit: 5 Stars
True Skynyrd fans already own this "deluxe edition." For the casual fan, the one who owns the box set or any of the many "greatest hits" compilations, it's worth noting what is actually here.
First, as with all of the "deluxe editions" issued by Universal, the packaging is excellent. Original artwork, nice slipcase, an excellent 24-page booklet with archive photos and pretty much everything you ever wanted to know about "Street Survivors" and the events that preceded and followed its release.
Disc 1, "The Original Album," is just that...the album as it was released in the best possible digital format.
Disc 2, "Criteria Studios Album," is the "other" version...yes, they recorded the album twice. The draw here is the longer, slower version of "That Smell," with no shortage of guitar solos. You've heard "Jacksonville Kid" before (Ronnie's new lyrics added to "Honky Tonk Night Time Man," and the last track he recorded in his lifetime).
The final 5 live tracks from Fresno CA in August 1977 are of historic interest, and the sound quality is basically "acceptable bootleg." It's the Street Survivors band in the early stages of the tour that would never happen. Less than two months later, Ronnie, Steve, Cassie and Dean were gone, and the survivors...real, actual survivors...were changed forever.
Skynyrd fans will, and should, want to add this to their collection. The more casual fan may not appreciate it in the same way. It's an essential 5-star release nonetheless.
Free Music Review: +1/2 -- Skynyrd's swan-song with terrific bonuses
Hit: 4 Stars
The fifth and final studio album of Lynyrd Skynyrd's original incarnation has always lived in the shadow of the 1977 plane crash that followed just three days after the LP's release. The band's fans couldn't help but refract the album through the prism of vocalist/songwriter Ronnie Van Zant's death, adding layers of meaning that weren't originally written into these songs. Thirty-one years later, the band's demise still hovers over this swan-song, but at the same time, the album's vitality and the band's then-bright future still shines through. Geffen's two-disc deluxe reissue augments the album's original eight tracks with a wealth of bonuses, including previously unreleased original versions of songs that were completely re-recorded for the commercial release, and five live tracks from the band's last-known concert recording, taped just two months before the plane crash.
Having become a top concert draw throughout the mid-70s, the band found a surprising amount of time to record this album. They produced a finished version with Tom Dowd in Florida, ditched the tapes and relocated to the Atlanta studio where they'd waxed "Free Bird." They re-recorded the bulk of the album from scratch, dropped a few songs and added a few others to create the final release. Though most of the titles remained the same between the two sessions, the energy and sound are quite different. The band is more pumped up on their self-produced recordings, and where Dowd stripped things down, the band added layers, such as the horn chart on "What's Your Name." Their intuition was right, and though some fans didn't appreciate Skynyrd evolving away from their rougher roots, Van Zant's songs easily took the extra polish.
Van Zant's lyrics continued to mine the autobiographical clarity and detail he'd shown on earlier albums, and the addition of guitarist Steve Gaines added country flavor to the original "I Know a Little" and a cover of Merle Haggard's "Honky Tonk Night Time Man." Still, the band could always play it gritty, as the Collins/Van Zant "That Smell" so aptly showed. The earlier version of the song, taken a hair slower and with Van Zant's vocal more isolated and dry, is even more harrowing (a second early version, included here, extends the song to 7:30 with a lengthy guitar jam). The overall hallmark of "Street Survivors" is the confident sound of a band at the top of their game.
Fans will relish the opportunity to hear the earlier unreleased version of the album, including a pair of songs ("Georgia Peaches" and "Sweet Little Missy") that were dropped from the final track list. An additional highlight presented here is Van Zant's rewrite of "Honky Tonk Night Time Man," as the autobiographical "Jacksonville Kid." The five live tracks are good performances of historical interest, but only limited (and mono) audio quality. This is a welcome upgrade to the original CD issue. 4-1/2 stars, if allowed fractional ratings. [©2008 hyperbolium dot com]
Free Music Review: Interesting, but...
Hit: 2 Stars
I've always loved this album. I was listening to it when news of the accident came on TV. If you don't already have the original version, this one is worth getting just for disc 1 and having a chance to listen to disc 2. But if it is the live versions of the songs form "Street Survivors" that you were looking forward to hearing (I was), you are better off getting the "Freebird - The Movie" soundtrack. The unreleased version is interesting, but at the price of this set, I'd think twice.