The Best of Eric Andersen

The Best of Eric Andersen

The Best of Eric Andersen covers the expansive first half-decade of Andersen’s long and erratic but beautiful career. Like most Greenwich Village folkies, he was enamored, confused, and sometimes angry at the scene’s most famous export, Bob Dylan. “The Hustler” sounds like it’s not sure whether to attack the man or to play along, while such folk classics as “Thirsty Boots,” “Close the Door Lightly," and “Violets of Dawn” show Andersen as an above-average practitioner of a folk tradition that was evolving more quickly than anyone could keep up with. (Andersen eventually excelled as a literate singer/songwriter in the early '70s.) The Woody Guthrie tributes are here (“My Land Is a Good Land,” “Dusty Box Car”), as are lesser-known tunes that brilliantly bridge the gap between the folk era and the singer/songwriter era (“Song to J.C.B.”). Andersen eventually added backing musicians and followed Dylan into a county-flavored back-to-the-land paradise (“Just a Country Dream”), while also boosting his romantic credentials (“Miss Lonely Are You Blue,” “A Woman Is a Prism”). 

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