John Fogerty - The Blue Ridge Rangers Rides Again

Verve 2009

Tracks: 1. Paradise / 2. Never Ending Song Of Love / 3. Garden Party / 4. I Don't Care (Just As Long As You Love Me) / 5. Back Home Again / 6. I'll Be There (If Ever You Want Me) / 7. Change In The Weather / 8. Moody River / 9. Heaven's Just A Sin Away / 10. Fallin' Fallin' Fallin' / 11. Haunted House / 12. When Will I Be Loved

Comments:

This second round with the Blue Ridge Rangers / John Fogerty is probably largely as one would expect it. Very accomplished and well-played! What it needs is perhaps a few more surprises. The traditional country are largely allowed to draw the picture. The song choice is probably okay; a mixture of well-known standards and a few more obscure country songs, but in either case the arrangements contain few surprises.

The album opens well with John Prine's "Paradise", which probably has all a good classic country song should. Among the following songs Rick Nelson's "Garden Party" definitely is a number that deserves to be revisited; unfortunately the arrangement is so faithfull to Nelson's original that experiment almost seems superfluous.

Actually I first really woke up when the tones of track 7th were to be heard. Where was it I'd heard this song before?? - Oh, yes. . It was Fogerty's own "Change in the Weather" from the overlooked album "Eye of the Zombie". Definitely one of this album's highlights and more "CCR" than the original version, which is also very good.

"Moody River" was a nice beat, and it is altogether a fine melancholy tune.

The final track is Everly Brothers' "When Will I Be Loved", which is one of the few songs which has really been given a different treatment - a more rocking arrangement, and with a surprise guest vocal by Bruce Springsteen.

All in all a solid album from Fogerty, which however, contains only few surprises.

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