| T O P I C R E V I E W |
| lemonade kid |
Posted - 15/02/2015 : 19:25:01
Jackson hasn't lost a step...this new release takes me back to the 60's & 70's and at the same time looks to today and tomorrow.....brilliant.
And what about that old song: ÒThe Birds of St. MarksÓ? A Byrds-inspired tune that was written when the 18-year-old Browne was playing guitar for Nico and involved with her romantically, itÕs the lead-off track and the one thatÕs getting the most attention... -©Pop Matters
On a deeply felt folk-rock set, the great singer-songwriter keeps fighting for freedom and love
©Rolling Stone 2014
BY ANTHONY DECURTIS October 7, 2014
Listen & Read On
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Qkln2kNv-Pw&index=1&list=PLFGZuCCICYt1qqNpqX4CM3UsC2WAz01D7
©2014
"You don't know why, but you still try/For the world you wish to see," Jackson Browne sings on "Standing in the Breach," the title track to his 14th album of new material and his first in six years. It's a characteristic sentiment, one that reaches back to the Seventies, when Browne distinguished himself as one of America's most visionary and important songwriters. In now-classic songs like "For Everyman," "Before the Deluge," "Running on Empty" and "The Pretender," Browne took a hard look at why the values of the Sixties seemed to die for so many people when that decade passed. Those values Ð freedom, compassion, generosity Ð remain vibrantly alive for him, and on this superb, inspiring album, he once again stands waiting for everyman: "The change the world needs now," he sings, "is there, in everyone."
What's most compelling about Browne is that he understands how greed and destruction in the public world devastate our private lives, rendering love both more necessary and harder to sustain: "It's hard to say which did more ill/Citizens United or the Gulf oil spill." The 10 songs on Standing play like conversations between lovers trying to reassure each other of their commitment in a world that devalues human connection of any kind in favor of profit. "You think I'm wishing I was some other place," he sings on "Yeah Yeah," "but in fact I'm right here/With my shoulder to the wheel, baby/And my heart in the deal."
Musically, Browne's signature sound remains country-tinged folk rock, infused with the spare elegance of Protestant hymns. "Leaving Winslow," whose title nods slyly to that famed "corner in Winslow, Arizona" that Browne immortalized with co-writer Glenn Frey in "Take It Easy," propels forward on an infectious rockabilly beat, as does "You Know the Night," set to lyrics by Woody Guthrie. The rocker "If I Could Be Anywhere," featuring keyboardist Benmont Tench and drummer Jim Keltner as guests, beautifully fades out on a dreamlike melody that evokes the more-perfect world Browne believes we still can attain.
At 66, Browne has been an activist long enough to realize that his most firmly held ideals may never achieve fruition. But, like John Lennon, he's enough of an artist to understand that imagining the world as it should be is the first step in bringing that world about. However, the next step Ð doing something Ð is even more important. "Which side are you on?" Browne asks, quoting the old union anthem. There's only one answer as far as he's concerned, and he makes an eloquent case for it on this album.
From The Archives Issue 1220: October 23, 2014-Rolling Stone-all rights reserved
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"After silence, that which comes nearest to expressing the inexpressible is music".
-Aldous Huxley |
| 2 L A T E S T R E P L I E S (Newest First) |
| lemonade kid |
Posted - 15/02/2015 : 19:32:47
Jackson Browne: Standing in the Breach
By Rob Caldwell 8 October 2014
© Pop Matters 2014
The uber-troubadour. The archetypal sensitive singer/songwriter. The political firebrand and protest song torchbearer. In a career spanning over 40 years, Jackson Browne has been all these things and more. Standing in the Breach, BrowneÕs first collection of new material since 2008Õs Time the Conqueror, has songs that touch all these bases, and even includes a composition that predates his first album. This is Jackson Browne in 2014: comfortable and secure enough with his art to revisit an old song, but not out of ideas yet. HeÕs still fighting, and still searching.
And what about that old song: ÒThe Birds of St. MarksÓ? A Byrds-inspired tune that was written when the 18-year-old Browne was playing guitar for Nico and involved with her romantically, itÕs the lead-off track and the one thatÕs getting the most attention. For Browne, the choice to record it is unusual as heÕs mostly ignored his very early songsÑthe slew of widely bootlegged 1967 and 1971 unreleased demos, including a good 30-plus songs never put on album. Yet, solo tours over the last decade, where he took audience requests, seem to have given him an acceptance of some of the more obscure entries in his catalog (in fact, a piano version of ÒThe Birds of St. MarksÓ was included on the live Solo Acoustic, Vol. 1).
He dips into the past in a different way on ÒLeaving WinslowÓ, a return to that town from ÒTake it EasyÓ, the big Eagles hit that Browne co-wrote. A desire to escape tugs at his sleeve, and he wants to disappear into the past to a simpler time when he was just standinÕ on that corner in the small Arizona town. Emphasizing that longing for yesterday, the song is a Ô70s-style Southern California country rock song, an obvious, but welcome echo of BrowneÕs original For Everyman version of ÒTake It EasyÓ.
These two songs are a reckoning of sorts with the past. After all, we have to know where weÕve come from, both personally and as a people, to see where weÕre going. And where are we going? Nowhere good on our current path, at least in BrowneÕs worldview. Though his commitment to exposing injustice and political and corporate corruption is still strong, at times itÕs almost like heÕs trying to convince himself as much as us that itÕs all worth it: ÒItÕs hard to keep track of whatÕs gone wrong / The covenant unravels and the news just rolls along / I could feel my memory letting go some two or three disasters agoÓ (ÒThe Long Way AroundÓ). HeÕs not ready to throw in the towel just yet, though. The title song is a rallying cry, almost a pep talk, using an earthquake (perhaps the 2010 Haiti earthquake of the striking album cover photo) and its aftermath as a loose metaphor for the state of the world and the sometimes blind but necessary hope needed to improve things.
This Òbattle for the futureÓ is a common theme, with the centerpiece ÒIf I Could Be AnywhereÓ highlighting his realization that when it comes down to it, living fully in the present is the most meaningful thing we can do. Our current actions are the prime determinant of whatever happens down the road: ÒIf I could be anywhere and change things / It would have to be nowÓ.
He ends the album with ÒHereÓ, a quiet closer and an old-style Jackson Browne song that could be from any point in his career. An easy flowing, sad song of love lost built on a descending picked acoustic guitar line and colored with Greg LeiszÕ lap steel guitar, itÕs a mellow way to end an album thatÕs one of his most balanced, strongest works.
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"After silence, that which comes nearest to expressing the inexpressible is music".
-Aldous Huxley
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| lemonade kid |
Posted - 15/02/2015 : 19:28:29
Jackson Browne: Standing In The Breach Review
Paste/magazine
By Holly Gleason
October 28, 2014 | 3:21pm
ÒItÕs never been that hard to buy a gun/Now theyÕll sell a Glock 19 to just about anyone,Ó muses Jackson Browne midway through ÒThe Long Way Around,Ó balancing AmericaÕs pursuit of freedom with the notion of consequence. Even in what the singer/songwriter canÕt embrace, he seeks compassion as piano chords fall like soft rain, ultimately offering, ÒWith all we disagree about/The passions burn, the heart goes outÉÓ
Browne has always led a double life: sensitive singer/songwriter and committed activist. During his 40-year career, thereÕs been a tug of war between the romantic poet and the surging outcry. On Standing In The Breach, his first album since 2008Õs Time The Conqueror, the Southern California soft rock icon seamlessly reconciles the two.
Drawing on touchstones from his past, most notably The Pretender, Late for the Sky and For Everyman, he embraces his past without getting mired in the temple of who he used to be. His past is vibrant, but the shimmering melodies and tracksÕ spaciousness lends Breach immediacy.
Browne also reinvents Lou ReedÑtaking the changes of ÒSweet JaneÓ and writing a forged-by-mingled-lives love song ÒYeah YeahÓÑand Bob DylanÑrecasting the churning ÒGotta Serve SomebodyÓ in a more personal reckoning/invitation ÒWhich Side?ÓÑin far more hopeful terms. He even invokes ÒTake It Easy,Ó BrowneÕs co-written Ô70s Eagles anthem, with the train-beat rootlessness of ÒLeaving Winslow.Ó
He understands the chambers and echoes of the heart. The haunted ÒHereÓ embodies the numb vertigo of a loverÕs absence, while the mythic ÒThe Birds of St Marks,Ó begun in 1967 and played sporadically live but never recorded, weighs the costs and loss in love from a young manÕs eye.
That idealism permeates the twang of ÒYou Know The Night,Ó a song of desire realized through the prism of awarenessÑdrawn from 15 pages of Woody GuthrieÕs journals. The same ardor infused with seeking a higher world entwines Carlos VarelaÕs ÒWindows + Doors,Ó Varela providing plangent echo vocals as the song finds a hushed climax.
Unlike Pete Seeger, BrowneÕs activism never drowned the lover inside. For Breach, the two merge with an intoxicating sense; the personal elevates the political. ÒBreachÓ delicately offers optimism beneath its reckoning, while ÒIf I Could Be AnywhereÓ tackles hard truth, love and the notion this is where he chooses to make his stand.
But itÕs ÒThe Long Way Around,Ó where his misspent youth and our cultural mandates merge in a wake-up call as he name-checks Citizens United and the Gulf oil spill. Here acceptance isnÕt acquiescence, but the suggestion coming together is the only chance we have. For Browne, Breach is the best of all worlds.
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"After silence, that which comes nearest to expressing the inexpressible is music".
-Aldous Huxley
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