LightFire,
How would you rate this for acoustic guitar and mandolin goodness? I don't worship Dylan but like several of his songs. What I want from this is the acoustic instrumentation, and a good recording of that, as well as listenability in general. Steve Howe plays these 2 acoustic solos I am familiar with on Yes Album, "Clap" (should not have been "The Clap") and on Fragile, "Mood for a Day". I am looking for some more of his acoustic playing in the spotlight.
info/samples:
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00000JIS5/ref=m_art_pr_3/102-2445045-2175362?ie=UTF8
Steve Howe plays almost everything with strings in this disc. It is not completely "unplugged". It has electric bass, electric guitar (Howe) and keyboards. There are also violin and cello.
Steve plays acoustic and electric guitar in all tracks. He plays also mandolin (on tracks 1 and, specially, 7) + banjo, steel, Spanish guitar, sitar, washboard!
There are solos here and there (mostly electric) but they never take over the tracks that are dominated by the vocals (several different vocalists).
The CD is relatively new (1999) so the production is modern and well done. The sound is "polished" in comparison to an usual Dylan album (perhaps the raw harshness of Dylan's albums come from his voice and harmonica).
Howe says he is a big fan of Dylan. His son, called Dylan Howe plays drums in the record.
I love this record. Specially Sad Eyed Lady of The Lowlands with Jon Anderson (Yes) and It's All Over Now Baby Blues with Annie Haslam (Renaissance). It sells pretty cheap on Ebay and Amazon. You should give it a try. I rate it a 4 out of 5 for the beauty of the arrangements and the calming easy flowing of the melodies as you listen to the CD.
