Customer Reviews
Fabulous, Fabulous Record - By: Christopher Hunter, 08 Aug 2008 
I love Ryan Adams & Whiskeytown. There is something completely compelling about this record. At a stage when the band was on the verge of breaking up something magic happened & they produced what is probably the most complete alt-country (I'm not using the term Americana!!) release of it's time. I'm not going to pick any track because there are no turkeys on the great record.
It also comes with a 70 min extra CD of out-takes & unreleased tracks, many of which would put other bands to shame if they had been on the original release. Faultless.
a PROPER reissue! - By: Ted Maul, 07 May 2008 This, truly, is an amazing record. In my opinion this is the high point of Ryan Adams' career thus far- there was one very,very good Whiskeytown album after this (Pneumonia) & one absolute classic solo LP (Heartbreaker) & many,many quality tunes (Political Scientist,Magnolia Mountain,Nuclear,etc,etc,etc). But a good marker of quality in these reissues is the bonus material-and amazingly,most of it is just as good as the original album. Which proves just how much of a roll Adams was on circa 1997.
2nd ALBUM GIVEN STUNNING REMASTER with 24 PREVIOUSLY UNRELEASED TRACKS ADDED - EVEN AS A RABID FAN - I'M WOWED!! - By: Mark Barry at Revival Records, Berwick Street, 01 Apr 2008 WHISKEYTOWN were:
(David) RYAN ADAMS - Acoustic, Electric Guitars, Piano, Banjo, Percussion, Lead Vocals & Principal song Writer
PHIL WANDSCHER - Electric Guitar, Organ, Percussion & Backing Vocals
CAITLIN CARY - Violin & Lead/Backing Vocals
JEFF RICE - Bass Guitar
STEVEN TERRY - Drums, Percussion & Backing Vocals
"Strangers Almanac" was the 2nd album for North Carolina country-rock band Whiskeytown & first appeared to warm acclaim in the summer of 1997. "Faithless Street" from two years earlier had been their excellent & promising debut & the messy release of "Pneumonia", their 3rd & last album recorded in 1997, but not released until April 2001 was a few years away yet. (They actuallly disbanded in 1999 & both Ryan Adams & Caitlin Cary went solo). Produced, engineered & mixed by JIM SCOTT, "Strangers Almanac" sounded like a band not just finding their feet, but a group `arriving' - & big time. This 31 March 2008, 2CD DELUXE EDITION, is a major overhaul of that record (it's been available Stateside since January 2008) & for my money, it's already a strong contender for REISSUE OF THE YEAR.
A few things came together in 1997; Ryan Adams' gifted song writing had reallly begun to flourish into something special, the band was talented & playing beautifully, while producer Scott seemed to know exactly how to tap into the band's psyche & get their `Whiskeytown' sound. Jim Scott would turn out to be a big part of the album's `feel' & success. His truly beautiful production job on Tom Petty's "Wildflowers" from 1994 had won him an Engineering Award - & combining that same loose, gritty `live' playing with a sympathetic sound engineer gave every track on the album a very real power & emotional punch. I mention the production a lot because the original CD I've had alll these years has always sounded superb - but this TED JENSEN master is something else! Although the difference in the mastering is ever so subtle, the effect isn't. The SOUND IS NOW SIMPLY AWESOME! The album literallly explodes out of the speakers in the most fully crystal clear manner ever! And listening to the acoustics of "16 Days" or the twin rough & ready electric guitars of the magnificent "Everything I Do" now, is like hearing them anew - it feels like there's an improvement in every instrument! You can suddenly hear them alll! It seems that this time around, a gentle tweaking has brought out how well recorded they were in the first place! I don't think I've heard an album more perfectly improved on as this one is. And if that's not enough, there's 24 Previously Unreleased Tracks thrown in too! Let's get to that...
Here's the breakdown:
DISC 1 (70:36 minutes):
Tracks 1 to 13 are the original album from 31 July 1997, released on CD as Outpost Recordings/Mood Food Records OPD 30005
Tracks 14 to 18 are 5 previously unreleased live performances from 10 September 1997, recorded/broadcast for "Brave New World" on KCRW-FM Radio in Santa Monica, California
DISC 2 (77:13 minutes)
Track 1: Indian Gown (Non-LP Track)
Track 2: 16 Days (Acoustic)
Track 3: Somebody Remembers The Rose (Acoustic)
Track 4: Avenues (Acoustic)
Track 5: Excuse Me While I Break My Own Heart Tonight (Acoustic)
Track 6: Houses On The Hill (Early Version)
Track 7: My Heart Is Broken (Non-LP Track)
Track 8: I Still Miss Someone (Acoustic) [a Johnny Cash cover]
Track 9: Kiss & Make-Up (Non-LP Track)
Track 10: Barn's On Fire ((Non-LP Track)
Track 11: Dancing With The Women At The Bar (Early Version)
Track 12: Dreams (Non-LP Track) [a Fleetwood Mac cover]
Track 13: Breathe (Non-LP Track)
Track 14: Wither, I'm A Flower (issued on the promotional-only "In Your Wildest Dreams" EP in 1997 & then on the Soundtrack to "Hope Floats" in 1998)
Track 15: Luxury Liner (Non-LP Track) [a Gram Parsons cover]
Track 16: Theme For A Trucker (issued on the Soundtrack to Wim Wender's film "The End Of Violence" in 1997)
Track 17: Streets Of Sirens (Non-LP Track)
Track 18: Turn Around (Alternate Early Version)
Track 19: 10 Seconds (Non-LP Track)
Track 20: Ticket Time (Alternate Early Version)
Track 21: The Rain Won't Help You When It's Over (Early Version)
[this is an Alejandro Escovedo song, who also sang backing vocals on 3 tracks on the album, "Excuse Me While I Break My Heart Tonight", "Dancing With The Women At The Bar" & "Not Home Anymore"]
Disc 1:
Recorded for US Radio, the 5 previously unreleased tracks tagged onto the end of Disc 1 are a mixed bag. Both the performance & sound quality of "Houses On The Hill" & "Nurse With The Pills" seem dull, like the band is disinterested somehow. Not the best. But things improve considerably with "I Don't Care What You Think About Me", a new song that features great duet vocals with Caitlin Cary. The other two are good too, but for me, the real meat `n' potatoes starts on Disc 2...
Disc 2:
Excepting the two already released soundtrack songs, alll tracks on Disc Two are Previously Unreleased & were recorded in two studio stints known as the "Barn On Fire" sessions (Tracks 1, 3, 6, 9, 10, 11, 12, 15, 17, 18, 19, 20 & 21) & the "Baseballl Park" sessions (Tracks 2 & 5). The "Barn On Fire" sessions were recorded in Durham in North Carolina & acted as a run-through & rehearsal for the "Strangers Almanac" album, while the "Baseballl Park" sessions were put down in Modern Recording studios in Chapel Hill, North Carolina.
(There were further recordings at Chapel Hill & tracks from that session turn up on the 1998 extended version of "Faithless Street" put out on Outpost OPRD-30002 (it has 9 added tracks to the 1995 album's initial 12 & is a good starting point after this album).
Thankfully the superb quality of sound on the album continues on the double-album's worth of unreleased material on Disc 2. As you can see, there are three cover versions, one ALEJANDRO ESCOVEDO song & the rest of the tracks are written solely by RYAN ADAMS. (Tracks 6, 7 & 18 are co-written with CAITLIN CARY, while 1, 3, 19 & 20 are co-written with PHIL WANDSCHER).
The `acoustic' nature of about half of the tracks on Disc 2 make it feel like an extended `unplugged' session at times. And this is not a bad thing at alll, because these aren't poorly recording home demos or half-finished rough versions - they're properly recording studio pieces, so the sound quality that came through on the album does so here too & it makes a huge difference to the listen. If anything, some of the tracks are alll the more beautiful for being stripped down like this - they have an almost eerie "Nebraska" feel to them, real & of the moment. The production quality is fantastic. I'm reminded of Rick Rubin's stunning work on the five Johnny Cash American Recordings albums.
Track 2 is typical, just when I thought "16 Days" couldn't get any more touching, this initial `acoustic take' of the song - in my opinion - almost aces the finished version - it's just breathtaking & fans will adore it. The brilliant "Breathe" & the FACES feel to "The Rain Won't Help When It's Over" are rocking highlights, as is "Barn's On Fire". Both "10 Seconds" & "Ticket Time" kick ass as well - great band efforts. The opener is a pretty little song about a pretty little girl in an "Indian Gown" with reallly tasty guitar work featured - a quality track most bands would kill a close relative to have. The band's cover version of Fleetwood Mac's "Dreams" isn't great but the solo acoustic take of Johnny Cash's "I Still Miss Someone" is lovely. The full on countrified "Kiss & Make-Up" & "Luxury Liner" are impressive too with Bill Ladd's complimentary pedal steel work on "Kiss & Make-Up" being particularly sweet. It's astonishing reallly that the quality across alll the tracks is so damn good - I'll be listening to these a lot - I know it - & not treating them like they were `interesting' - play them once & then leave them on the shelf.
To sum up: this is a brilliant album given a stunning sonic upgrade & a shed load of previously unreleased material you will want to hear again & again. There have been some truly superb DELUXE EDITION releases in Universal's catalogue, but this is reallly something special. Buy with confidence & I envy you the journey!
PS: Dear Universal, please finallly release the DELUXE EDITION of Thin Lizzy's "Vagabonds Of The Western World" promised six times, but still yet to appear!
