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(More customer reviews)A couple of years ago I went to go hear Dar Williams in concert on a college campus, where she appeared with Richard Shindell, who both "opened" the concert and performed with her as well. This was right before both artists had the good fortune of having Joan Baez cover some of their songs on her album; in fact, Shindell left the concert tour to go open for Baez in Europe, if I remember correctly. Since both artists have live albums available I picked them both up to recreate the fun of that night (which ended with me picking up copies of Shindell's first three albums).
The album title is taken from the opening song, "The Courier," which obviously serves as a metaphor for Shindell as a singer-songwriter. Initially I was somewhat disappointed that this concert recording does not contain any of the memorable introductions Shindell gave to his songs (especially "Are You Happy Now?" and his trucker twins, "Next Best Western" and "The Kenworth of My Dreams"). The liner notes are unusual for a live album in that they include all of the lyrics for these songs, which certainly makes sense give Shindell's talents as a lyricist. But I do wish that some of the stories behind the songs had made their way into the album as well.
This is one of the better live recordings I have heard in a while, after a whole bunch of disappointments in that regard (e.g., the Dar Williams album); I am talking just about the technical aspects of capturing the artist's sound (tip of the cap to Ben Wisch). What I found most interesting about this album is that Shindell makes many of these songs sound differently from how we first heard them on the albums, not through instrumentation, but through how he sings them. The best example of this is "Reunion Hill," which he sings with a new, elegant simplicity. Lucy Kaplansky's voice is used to create some nice new harmonies on a few songs and the album closes with a nice cover of Springsteen's "Fourth of July, Asbury Park (Sandy)." Another way of thinking about this is that Shindell was in damn fine voice the night(s) he was recorded. This is not what I would call a great live album, just an incredibly solid one that should impress you whether this is your first or just your latest exposure to Richard Shindell.
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