Live - Worcester, MA 4/4/73

Album Review

Once upon a time a listener was lucky to get one live recording from their favorite group. Even then, the recording was likely to have been pieced together from a dozen different performances and only offer a facsimile of the real thing. It's a real bonus then that more and more live shows — both old and new — are being released intact over the span of a couple of discs. Worcester, MA 4/4/73 offers a snapshot of the New Riders of the Purple Sage at the top of their game. The New Riders, unlike the Grateful Dead and the Allman Brothers, only occasionally qualify as a jam band, which means that the live versions of their songs are only slight variations of the studio cuts. The album includes nice versions of "I Don't Know You," "Whatcha Gonna Do," and "Rainbow" and good covers of "Long Black Veil," "Hello Mary Lou," and "Down in the Boondocks." It doesn't hurt the overall sound to have the Grateful Dead's pianist, Keith Godchaux, sitting in, nor to feature Donna Jean Godchaux delivering a good-time rendition of Loretta Lynn's "You Ain't Woman Enough." The Worcester show wraps up with an epic, 11-minute version of "Willie and the Hand Jive," a song that no doubt incited the audience to dance in the aisles. Worcester, MA 4/4/73 will please New Riders fans and anyone who appreciates the special blend of country and rock that flourished during the early '70s. ~ Ronnie D. Lankford, Jr., Rovi