Saturday, June 15, 2013

**** Stand Up by Steve Morse – Awesome, But Likely To Get Lost In The Massive Shuffle of Prog

So what does 4 stars mean in this instance?  To me it means that there is superb music, outstanding song writing, but that this album won’t be remembered such that it stands the test of time.  Eventually, folks will probably stop bothering to seek out this far in Steve Morse’s catalogue, simply because most folk don’t have the time to listen to all the stuff out there, which is in one way kind of exciting, but in this case is sad, because this is a really good album, and will be sad when one day distributors stop bothering with it, and it can no longer be bought.
And, what about the songs, is it an good album through and through?  The answer to the is a resounding answer is a yes!  Stand Up truly is a world class work of art.
While Stand Up is not Steve Morse’s best work it is definitely worth picking up.  There are most certainly some really good songs on this effort.  It is both technical and interesting to listen to.  Steve Morse and the Dixie Dregs catalogue represents some of my most favorite progressive rock.  I heard of them all the way back when I was at college from a music teacher.  He was switching formats from tape to cd, so he offered me his tapes.

One thing that stands out on Stand Up is that the vocals sound a lot like Eric Johnson of the Eric Johnson band.  In fact, I wouldn’t be surprised if it was him, but I lack the jacket of this work.  That Stand Up has any vocals at all on it is worth mentioning because usually Steve Morse plays without a singer.  It doesn’t have a lot of vocals, so be alerted.  To me it doesn’t matter who is singing, just that it is good.  If you have heard of Eric Johnson, chances are that you may not have heard of Steve Morse or his better known band the Dixie Dregs.  However, if you have heard of the Dixie Dregs, then chances are that you will have heard the music of Eric Johnson.  And, if you like this sort of music then the album Stand Up should make a great addition if you are an album collector who collects for the sake of listening.

No comments:

Post a Comment