Title - Stars In The Southern Sky [3CD]
Artist - Steve Young
For those not in the know, singer/songwriter/instrumentalist Steve Young (1942-2016) was a pioneer of “country rock” and of “outlaw country,” two movements that transformed mainstream country music and impacted other genres of American popular music.
Several generations of artists—country music’s new traditionalists during the 1980s, alternative country acts in the 1990s, as well as those associated with Americana music in the current century—broadened their audiences by merging country music with elements of other music genres.
All those musicians have been indebted to Young and such contemporaries as Gram Parsons and Gene Clark, who collectively demonstrated how to integrate country music with other music genres (rock, pop, folk, blues, R&B, bluegrass, and gospel).
Young, a Southerner, recorded more than a dozen distinctive albums, but none was more fully realized than his 1975 album Honky-Tonk Man. Recorded at the acclaimed Minneapolis studio Sound 80 and released by Mountain Railroad Records, a small independent label based in the Upper Midwest, Honky-Tonk Man documented the musical world of a complex if largely misunderstood artist during the peak of his powers.
Now, Honky-Tonk Man returns (also available in its original form on vinyl for the first time in three decades) as part of Stars In The Southern Sky — a 3-CD/Digital collection highlighting that monumental 1975 era.
Packaged in a slipcase, featuring a 40-page booklet with rare photos and new liner notes from Honky-Tonk Man Producer Stephen Powers and Ted Olson (who both oversaw the set.) The whopping 47-track set contains Honky-Tonk Man, “Stanley And Henry” (Young’s collaboration with Jim Post from Post’s 1978 I Love My Life album) and 34 previously unissued live tracks including standards and original material including Young’s classic “Seven Bridges Road” (a 1980 hit for the Eagles using Iain Matthews’ Michael Nesmith produced version as a template, and also covered by Dolly Parton, Alan Jackson, Rita Coolidge and more).
Disc 1 – Honky-Tonk Man
1. Honky-Tonk Man
2. Brain Cloudy Blues
3. Rock Salt & Nails
4. Rockin’ Chair Money
5. Ramblin’ Man
6. The Night They Drove Old Dixie Down
7. Traveling Kind
8. Sally Goodin’
9. Alabama Highway
10. Vision Of A Child
11. We’ve Been Together On This Earth Before
12. The White Trash Song
13. Stanley And Henry Jim Post with Steve Young [Bonus Track]
Simply put, this is the most straight-up country record Steve Young ever cut. He handles both lead and rhythm guitar chores with a band of fine session players, including Kamau Gravatt, who did double duty with Weather Report.
Other than redos of Utah Phillips’ Rock Salt & Nails and his own White Trash Song, Young sticks somewhat close to the canon of classic country with a few surprises - at least on the original side one, for the original flip side was mostly his own material.
The deep blues read of Bob Wills’ Brain Cloudy Blues is radical and as far from Western swing as it gets, but it also showcases Wills’ own roots in the blues. The title cut is a version of the Johnny Horton classic with swinging fiddles by Craig Ruble and Cal Hand’s warbling pedal steel kept in line by Bill Petersen’s electric bass.
A lushly lonesome take on Hank Williams’ Ramblin Man that is as cur-dog low as it is restless and a cover of Robbie Robertson’s The Night They Drove Old Dixie Down (here done in a low slung, almost pastoral and slow manner) are highlights as we continue, along with both the traditional Sally Goodin’ and the spooky country of Traveling Kind.
The other two CDs included in this mighty wondrous new collection from Omnivore Recordings are Steve Young live, and all 34 tracks contained are previously unissued, which will undoubtedly delight and thrill all his fans!
Disc 2 – Steve Young Live
1. Long Way To Hollywood
2. Ragtime Blue Guitar
3. Seven Bridges Road
4. Montgomery In The Rain
5. Brain Cloudy Blues
6. Lonesome, On’ry And Mean
7. Ramblin’ Man
8. Home Sweet Home Revisited
9. One Woman Man
10. No Place To Fall
11. Drift Away
12. Don’t Think Twice (It’s Alright)
13. Gonna Find Me A Bluebird
14. Hobo Blues
15. Go To Sea No More
16. Traveling Kind
17. That’s Alright Mama
Disc 3 – Steve Young Live
1. The White Trash Song
2. Tobacco Road
3. The Year That Clayton Delaney Died
4. All Her Lovers Want To Be The Hero
5. Corrina, Corrina
6. Rock Salt & Nails
7. Old Memories (Mean Nothing To Me)
8. You Don’t Miss Your Water
9. Love Please Come Home
10. San Francisco Mabel Joy
11. My Sweet Love Ain’t Around
12. Alabama Highway
13. Backslider’s Wine
14. East Virginia
15. Many Rivers
16. We’ve Been Together On This Earth Before
17. Midnight Rider
So, revisit the origins of Country Rock, Outlaw Country, and Americana. Sit back and enjoy the Stars In The Southern Sky!
Official Purchase Link
omnivorerecordings.com