'Casey Neill is at once, musician , writer, musicologist and student and he does his homework. Live performance may well be the best introduction to casey and the trio. There's the palpable tension of an audience on the edge of their seats and the release of the transition from jig to reel. These are songs with stories well told. This is what it's all about.' -- Steve Earle quoted on the Casey Neill Web site.
I'm going to start off this review by giving Casey Neill the first turn at saying what this album is: 'Live on 11th Street wasn't recorded on 11th Street. 11th Street is a state of mind. A bar on Manhattan's Lower Eastside where the drinks are strong and the company superb. Live on 11th Street by the Casey Neill Band was recorded at The Living Room, another downtown spot in New York City, in October 2003. This album is the last gig the band played with Johnny Cunningham - fiddler, raconteur, producer extraordinaire, and dear friend. I met Johnny Cunningham at the East Avenue Tavern in Portland, Oregon, one night in the early 90's when he was working on a Nightnoise album. It was there that Johnny and I first became friends, and he later produced my record Skree (1998). I soon left Portland for Brooklyn, NY, where Johnny rearranged my folk material into rock songs and we later formed a band. The outcome is Johnny's last produced record: 'Brooklyn Bridge' (to be released later this year). Live on 11th Street features two songs from previous recordings, a pile of new ones, a flaying of the old time standard 'Raleigh and Spencer', and a Springsteen cover. The album's mood travels from drunk & tough to sweet & sentimental, and includes much quipping and a broken string. Jon Spurney on guitar and piano, Nancy Hess on bass and vocals, Chris Benelli on drums, Johnny on fiddle and vocals, and myself on guitar and vocals. Live on 11th Street is a piece of our lives, rock and/or roll music with a good rootsy-thing happening. Johnny held court at the 11th Street Bar, and we'd often find ourselves singing around on an out-of-tune piano and stumbling home with 'Somewhere Over The Rainbow' in our heads. Pull up a stool.'
Pull up a stool indeed. On what would be the very last album that the late and much missed Johnny Cunningham recorded as both one of the finest fiddlers ever and as an accomplished vocalist, the Casey Neill Band created one of the finest albums that I've ever heard. More on why that is so later. (Casey says on the CD Baby site, and I agree, that it's 'Rock and/or roll music with some twangy geetar, Scottish fiddling, and piano ballads. Drunk and tough, except for the mushy moments.' I'll give you my opinion on it in a bit.)
The CD itself comes in a modest red cardboard package that reminds me of the wrapping of a solstice gift that might come one magical night for a child. Interestingly enough, another CD that Johnny was involved in came in similarly delightful packaging -- the Peter & Wendy Cast Recording, which had such outstanding musicians playing with Johnny as Jamshied Sharifi, Karen Kandel, Jay Ansill, Seamus Egan, and Susan McKeown! Johnny and Susan were a musical duo for many years right up to his untimely death in December of '03.
Inside the packaging (which is simply titled on the front CASEY NEILL BAND Live on 11th Street) is a CD and almost no liner notes, save the lyrics to 'Philadelphia Girl,' which Casey wrote, and a scant few notes about the CD itself. Ahhh, but it's the music you want to know about. And that it is indeed what this CD is all about. It's that rarest of CDs --a recording of a concert where both the material and the musicians are first-rate. No, it's not impossible, as I've heard a number of truly great live recordings including the Oysterband's Alive and Acoustic, Childsplay's Live effort, Dervish's Live In Palma, Lnasa's Live in Brunswick, Melbourne soundboard recording, and Old Blind Dogs' Live CD. Don't bother looking for the latter -- the band disavows that it exists, as they say it wasn't authorised.
Why is Live on 11th Street so great? Because it rocks! Casey voice is every bit as good as Springsteen's was at his best, and his band were obviously having a ball the evening this was recorded. (Casey covers Springsteen's 'Racing In The Street' off the Darkness on the Edge of Town album here. His version is, in my opinion, even better than the Springsteen original.) So unless someone cleaned it up afterwards, the sound board tech that night, Mark Frankel assisted by Chris Taylor according to the liner notes, is one damn fine sound engineer! It's crisp, it's clear, and it's FHL -- Faster Harder Louder. Michael Jones, one of our staffers, coined that term for his review of Rook's only album, C'mon. What he said there of that album applies here equally well: 'For one thing, they satisfy my FHL rule about music. FHL? Faster. Harder. Louder. Yup, that's right, I'm actually a rock 'n' roll fan.' And Live on 11th Street is, at its heart, a rock and roll album with just enough folk to it to make it really interesting. I hadn't heard anything by Casey before, but will now definitely seek out his other recordings.
Before I leave you, let me stress that Johnny is very much present here. He plays fiddle -- brilliantly as always -- sings his heart out, and cracks witty comments from time to time. It's as good a recording of him as you'll likely find anywhere. Yes, he shows up as part of Nightnoise, the Celtic Fiddle Festival, Relativity, and other groups, but he really is caught at his best here. Casey and he obviously were at their very best here, and the rest of the band were just as good. This is a CD that will get played often here -- that's an impressive feat as we have over 1,500 CDs to choose from in our personal collection!
You can purchase the album here.
