An Excellent Collection
tgfabthunderbird | York, PA United States | 02/06/2007
(5 out of 5 stars)
"As I've written elsewhere, I first heard of James Blundell when working a country station, and we played some of his earlier songs. In fact, some of those songs are rightly here. Blundell is credited widely with bringing a younger generation around to country music, at least in his native Australia. What I'm glad to hear after coming across this collection is that he's not sold out, his music remains what he wants it to be, well written, not over-produced and passionate.
As I recall, his first sojourn into Nashville in '91 or so was not to his liking. He rejected the Nashville production machine which has in my view pretty much throttled country music over the past couple of decades and continued his own way.
In any case, this is a wide-ranging examination of Blundell's best tuneage, leaving off at his recent "Deluge." I can load this sucker into my CD player and leave it on repeat. "The Blue Heeler" was that song we gave a push to back then, and it's here, along with "Time On His Hand" and "Age of Grace," all from the "Hand It Down" album.
Among work from his other recordings, "Cloncurry Cattle Song" is a country history lesson of that region (Blundell was a former cattleman until an unimpressed bull decided to have something to say about it, I'm told), "Rain on a Tin Roof" is a subtle but pretty love song; "Kimberly Moon" almost sounds like jazz, but very nice. Can't forget the Dylan cover; he sang it well, and I liked how his backing band fit themselves under. Really well done.
You can't go wrong with this collection, believe you me."
Track Listings (20) - Disc #1