Eric Andersen – You Can’t Relive The Past

One of the most creative and erudite lyricists of the ’60s folk revival (Vanguard has re-released the cream of his early material as Violets Of Dawn), Eric Andersen balanced traditional Guthrie-esque travelin’ songs with a Kerouac-inspired sensitivity as well as anyone but Dylan, and he sang with a gorgeous, buttery voice that connoted both intensity and warmth. He has continued to write excellent songs through the past few decades, though he has never matched his early commercial success.

You Can’t Relive The Past is Andersen’s most ambitious work in years. While it contains some lovely acoustic folk ballads (“Eyes Of The Immigrant” echoes and expands his great early song “Thirsty Boots”), for the most part Andersen finds a densely textured blues-based sound similar in feel to Dylan’s Time Out Of Mind.

The title track, written and performed with Lou Reed, is a jaunty folk-rap take on aging and culture that achieves an edgy tone somewhere between acceptance and rebellion. Andersen turns into a roadhouse bluesman on a few cuts, backed by James “Super Chikan” Johnson on guitar and Sam Carr on drums. The best of these, “Once In A Pale Blue Moon”, is a rollicking shot of venom and wonder, an angrier and wittier version of Andersen’s landmark “Time Run Like A Freight Train”.

There are also four songs Andersen wrote long ago with the late Townes Van Zandt (the work tapes were lost for 13 years). Of these, “The Road” effectively summons both Van Zandt’s lonesome prairie blues and Andersen’s wandering-troubadour soul.

Andersen’s voice has lost some of its gossamer beauty, but his husky, throaty whisper both bites and caresses with verve and clarity on this alternately rowdy and haunting collection.