Search - Hoyt Axton :: A&M Years

Incredibly Disappointing Reissue

03/21/2001

(3 out of 5 stars)

"Believe me, if we were only discussing the music itself here, I'd give this one 5 stars. This is Hoyt Axton at his best -- in terms of songwriting and singing. And the fact that you can get his entire A&M output, representing 5 years of great music, in one fell swoop, should be a real plus. But, this CD is so badly compiled, that I feel I must alert others who, like me, are tempted to buy this collection.... My gripes:--Sound: I have never heard a supposed "digital remastering" so poorly done. The audio is badly distorted on more than half the tracks -- as if someone had the volume turned up just past the point where the sound begins to bleed. At first, I thought it might be my CD player, but I've tried it on several different players now, with the same result. --Liner notes: John Tobler (who??) provides some of the worst liner notes I've ever seen. He starts out by babbling about "Packy" Axton, to whom Hoyt Axton is not related. Run-on sentences and run-on paragraphs make reading near-impossible. His overuse of words like "probably," "maybe" and "as memory serves" betrays the fact that this was written off the top of his head, rather than researched. And, because of that, not surprisingly, he gets lots wrong here. --Discography. When these sides were first released as LPs, they included a complete list of players and singers on the tracks. None of that documentation makes its way here. So, you can't really throw away your old LPs once you get this, else you'll lose all the session info. --Packaging. There only 5 photos -- all nearly identical shots of Axton standing in front of a microphone. He was such an interesting guy, it's hard to believe that more compelling pix couldn't have been found.All this would be forgiveable if this was a $10 reissue on some shoestring label (e.g., Colletibles, Koch). But, ...[it isn't] and is released by A&M. They should really know better. Now, at least, you do..."

Boney fingers is still a family anthem 20 years later

11/05/1999

(5 out of 5 stars)

"Weird what you grow up with isn't it? I didn't grow up listening to much pop music but my family (one of those extened hippy families) were big into Hoyt Axton. I've been listening to these four albums since I was in diapers and they're great. I can still remember when my dad brought "lifemachine" home, I was 5 and my sister and brother and I danced naked in the musicroom--my parents were probably stoned at the time. Bless em' but they grew out of that, although my Dad doesn't have any short term memory left. The first concerts I ever went to were to see Hoyt Axton. In San Fransico my dad took me back to meet him on a set brake and he played "pet parade" for me. I once saw him at a Bread and Roses festival in Berkeley too. He's one of those guys that sounded the same on the album as he did live. Damn good song writer too. There's a lot of his songs out there that sometimes, you don't even know he wrote unless you pay attention. For instance, after I started playing guitar I learned Sweet Misery which I got off a John Denver album and Lighting Bar Blues which I got off an Arlo Guthrie Album. My boyfriend's son discovered an old CD of the Kingston Trio this spring--he said there was this great song on it that he kept playing over and over again (this is a kid who usually listens to Garth Brooks, Cake and Metalica.) I said, "oh really, which one?" and he said, "Green Back Dollar." Go figure. A couple of months ago our old "hippy family" had a reunion. I hadn't seen some of these people for 15 years or more so they didn't even know I played guitar. My uncle and I sat down and played a set of Hoyt Axton songs. And they came up to me and said, "My god, how could you even remember these songs, you were so little." I could remember them because they played the music and I listened and it was worth listening to. I guess you never know what musical influences are going to stay with you your whole life. For me it has been Hoyt Axton--kind of obscure, granted, but completely original. Hope you enjoy it too!p.s. Unlike other singer/songwriter/musicians I know my goal is not become a professional musician. I am just about two weeks away from getting my Masters degree in Geography at Univeriy of Texas at Austin and then get a real job so I can afford my CD habit."

Poor Howard's Dead & Gone

Lunatic Muse | 12/04/1999

(5 out of 5 stars)

"I can't count the number of times that friends and I have sat on a river bank after a long day of canoeing, singing Hoyt Axton's songs by a campfire. His music, the music from the time on this CD, lent itself well to those kinds of experiences. I was home sick one day, turned on the TV to a re-run of Bonanza. There was a young Hoyt Axton in a jail cell, singing about Poor Howard. I think they made that episode just to give him a chance to sing on TV. I can go on and on about Hoyt's music, but he said it best in the song, Gypsy Moth; "The black racoon by the light of the moon heard the music playing soft and low. And the songs we sang made the night time ring and the racoon loved the show. He went back and told his friends, you know them humans that live on the edge of the forest, they all had a party and man they really played my kind of music". Hoyt played my kind of music."