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Found this on the Dylan Expecting Rain site:

Redemption Songs
Springsteen?s Seeger tribute fiddles, while Young?s war protest burns

~ By CHRIS MORRIS ~

Illustration by Nathan Ota

ruce Springsteen and Neil Young have shown remarkable synchronicity: Both musicians have almost simultaneously issued high-concept albums, essentially cut live, with subject matter deeply in the American grain.

Springsteen?s new record, We Shall Overcome: The Seeger Sessions (Columbia), is, as the title suggests, a homage to Pete Seeger. Drawing 13 songs from the folk icon?s repertoire, Springsteen, ordinarily known for his arduous micromanagement in the studio, undertook the project as a kind of quick-hit refresher. With just wife Patti Scialfa and violinist Soozie Tyrell on board from the E Street Band, the album was batted out in just three sessions with a large crew of New York folk musicians enlisted by Tyrell.

This spontaneous set, on which you can hear Springsteen yelling key changes to the band and calling out soloists, is musically a very lively affair. The brew of acoustic guitars, keyboards, fiddles, banjo, accordion, and horns looks weird on paper, but the instrumentalists stir up a vital noise. A wild variety of American styles echo in these tracks ? jazz, blues, gospel, Cajun music, bluegrass, Tex-Mex. (Sorry, old-time fans, but rock ?n? roll takes a raincheck here.)

The most spirited performances are on gospel tunes: ?O Mary Don?t You Weep,? ?Jacob?s Ladder,? and ?Eyes on the Prize? get rousing big-band treatments. Nearly the equal of those are takes of Sis Cunningham?s Dust Bowl saga ?My Oklahoma Home,? the Irish antiwar ballad ?Mrs. McGrath,? and the dockworker?s lament ?Pay Me My Money Down.?

Unfortunately, the rest of the album suffers from an excess of timidity, and possibly from the bandleader?s book-learned familiarity with Seeger?s music. ?Shenandoah,? ?Erie Canal,? and (aiee!) ?Froggie Went A Courtin?,? which should not be sung by anyone beyond the third grade, just sort of sit there. The title track, performed with passion at a thousand civil-rights demonstrations, is juiceless here; listening to Springsteen?s subdued reading, you can tell he never sang it on the Freedom Highway. And the Boss?s unwillingness to play Seeger?s own classic compositions like ?If I Had a Hammer? and ?Turn! Turn! Turn!? is just mystifying.

In the end, some of Seeger?s music gets its due, but Seeger the political hero and risk-taker ? a man who was cited for contempt of Congress in 1957 for refusing to name fellow Communists to House witch-hunters ? is strangely absent. His long, principled struggle for social justice, peace, freedom, and equality is reduced on We Shall Overcome to a nice collection of well-played folk songs that never really rock the boat.

On the other hand, rocking the boat ? or blowing the boat right out of the water ? is what Neil Young is all about on Living With War. Young?s self-described ?metal folk-protest? album is ultimately truer to the spirit of Seeger?s work than Springsteen?s collection.

The speed with which Young?s album was created is already the stuff of legend: Sessions began on March 29, and the record ? which includes four songs cut the day they were written ? was delivered to Reprise Records on April 18. It was made so fast that it?s currently available only as a Web download. Young?s alacrity was a measure of the urgency of its contents: The sole subject of the album is the Iraq war, its dire impact here and abroad, and the mendacity and corruption of the Bush administration.

It?s a simple record. The power trio of Young, who eschews solos for thickets of loud, heavy chords, and his rhythm section of bassist Rick Rosas and drummer Chad Cromwell (who, significantly, played on Young?s Bush I broadside ?Rockin? in the Free World? in 1989) is augmented by a 100-voice choir and trumpeter Tommy Bray. They stir up a messy, emphatic racket worthy of the subject matter.

Living With War finds onetime Reagan Republican and former Patriot Act supporter Young at his crankiest, but it also features some of his most direct, delicate, and empathetic writing. The hardcore topical material ? the hectoring ?Let?s Impeach the President? and ?Looking for a Leader,? which namechecks Barack Obama and Colin Powell as potential candidates ? will receive the most attention (and the antipathy of right-wing nutjobs). But it?s moving songs like ?Flags of Freedom,? an unadorned description of a parade of troops marching off to war, and ?Families,? a soldier?s plea for compassion and respect, that will stay in the People?s Songbook as long as similar numbers by Bob Dylan (who is quoted musically and namechecked in the former tune).

So far, Living With War is the best and most powerful album of 2006. That said, let?s impeach the motherfucker.
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