Lonnie Rides Again...plus - Lonnie Donegan

Advantages: A great live track
Disadvantages: Singing the blues !!!

...Linda Gail Lewis is a younger sister of the great Jerry Lee Lewis and has inherited the same piano playing style but certainly has her own vocal strengths that compliment Van Morrison's more gruff almost "pub singer" style of nowadays (I can't wait for all the enraged Van fans writing in after that comment). "Let's Talk About Us" is taken from their forthcoming album "You Win Again", released on the 25th September, and is a great slice of country rock and roll, "Singing the Blues" is as bad as you could imagine but the third track, a live version of "The Ballard of Jesse James" featuring Lonnie Donegan and Chris Barber is much better and shows just what Van the man is still capable of.... Read review

Ciao members have rated this review on average off topic

Advantages: Classic tracks, diverse, some great versions.
Disadvantages: Not everyone's cup of tea

...fashionable in those heady, sixties, Liverpool days. Their music was more in the vein of the slightly earlier skiffle bands and performers such as Lonnie Donegan. I read somewhere that most bands and performers seem to become old fashioned and unpopular at some time, or another, before they become popular again. Many, such as The Beach Boys, end up being hailed as classic performers. I cannot see this happening to Joe Brown, but you never know. I have seen him recently on Jools Holland and he seems to have some appeal and following these days. There is no doubting that he is a talented musician. So what do you get on this CD? There are 25 tracks some of which were successful singles for Joe Brown over the years. They are: What A Crazy World (We're Livin' In) Picture Of You It Only Took A Minute Sally Ann All Things Bright And Beautiful That... Read review

Ciao members have rated this review on average helpful

Advantages: Superb artiste, a real innovator
Disadvantages: Earlier stuff was the best

...platform and sits down. Its time for another suburban wannabe to sing the angst ridden “song from the bedroom” the product of weekday evenings at home with Mum and Dad, playing the Freewheelin’ Bob Dylan over and over, and then making up his own song, “Girl with Raven Hair”, “Chimes of Freedom” or maybe just “For Carol”. Oh Bob, what did you do to us in those days? In 1965 when I was sixteen years old, the folk revival was under-way, but it still seemed a little like an off-shoot of the skiffle movement of a few years earlier when Lonnie Donegan hit the charts with Rock Island Line. American groups like the Kingston Trio and the New Lost City Ramblers, sang a variety of sanitised African/American minstrel songs, while Nina and Frederick soothed our ears with soft calypso tunes. Peter... Read review

Ciao members have rated this review on average helpful