Track Listing

1. Fallen Angel
2. Showdown at Big Sky
3. Broken Arrow
4. Sweet Fire of Love
5. American Roulette
6. Somewhere Down the Crazy River
7. Hell's Half Acre
8. Sonny Got Caught in the Moonlight
9. Testimony

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #7547 in Music
• Released on: 1990-10-25
• Number of discs: 1
• Dimensions: .21 pounds

Album Description
The Band singer/songwriter's 1987 solo album debut, unavailable domestically. Guests include The Bodeans, Peter Gabriel, Maria McKee, Ivan Neville, & U2 with production by Daniel Lanois. 9 tracks. Includes a 16-page booklet with song lyrics & credits. Geffen. 2003.

Amazon.com
Lightning does strike twice. Robbie Robertson's breathtaking 1987 solo debut was every bit as remarkable as another debut he'd masterminded two decades before, The Band's Music from Big Pink. Even more impressive was the fact that Robertson's new sound owed so little, other than a shared vision, to the sonic Americana he'd created with The Band. Robertson cashed in The Band's rustic tones in for a lush, beat-box womb created by coproducer Daniel Lanois. His own weird, almost spectral voice, also turned out to be the right vehicle for the words he'd been handing to others for so long. Bono, The BoDeans, and Peter Gabriel join in on keepers like "Fallen Angel" and "Broken Arrow." --Michael Ruby

Customer Reviews

A quantum leap from the band
Don't get me wrong -- I'm a big fan of the Band, from debut to Dylan's basement tapes to the Last Waltz. But Robertson must have had an out of body experience to come up with these renderings. A masterful performance with distinctive production by Daniel Lanois. Memorable cameos by U2 and the Bodines.

Overlooked masterpiece
Why this album did not create more of a cultural splash upon its release is a mystery to me. As another reviewer notes, it is as great as "Music from Big Pink," while bearing almost no resemblance to that work.
Great music, lyrics, performances, and production (by Daniel Lanois of U2 fame) In my opinion, Robertson's first solo album is one of the greatest musical works of the 20th century (I include Hendrix, Gershwin, Lennon-McCartney, Schoenberg, Stravinsky, Strauss, etc.). Finally, "Showdown at Big Sky" is one of the two greatest songs written about the nuclear sword of Damocles. (Pete Townshend's "Why did we fall for that?" being the other.)
His second solo effort, Storyville, is almost as good.

So moody, with a touch of magic.
Robbie Robertson gives you what i will called "naturs own" experience when it comes to music. When you try to listen to it, with open mind, it will lift you up as a human beeing. Certainly Track 6: Somewhere down the crazy River is in that category. That song has a certain touch of magic. It`s the space inbetween the different instruments, and the voice of Robbie Robertson, which will spin your soul into the direction of happines.
But how can you go wrong when you get help from Peter Gabriel and U2. When listen trough this CD, it have many highpoints, but there are some minor problems wich don`t
give it a 5 star, probably because sometimes the U 2 soundpicture make Robertson a "copycat" of U2. But when you listen once again at Somewhere Down the Crazy river, you are back on the track again. Listen to the wind, listen to the sea, listen to the nature. The voice of Robbie Robertson fits in there,....somewhere probably over the rainbow, when the words stops, and the music take over.