Name: Standing Eight
Brand: Rounder Select
SKU: 20003
Price: 16.57 USD
Availability: InStock

Standing Eight

Rating

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Performer Notes

Personnel includes: Bill Morrissey, Suzanne Vega, Patty Larkin, Johnny Cunningham, Shawn Colvin, Richard Gates, David Patt, John Curtis, Peter Keane, David Ruskin, Robin Ratteau, Eric Lillequist, Dean Adrien, Rick Watson, Cormac McCarthy, Greg Hopkins, Leslie Sivolkos.
By the time of Bill Morrissey's third release, STANDING EIGHT, he was well on his way to becoming one of New England's best folk-singers, and one of the top writers in the genre as well. From the opening bars of the melancholy "Handsome Molly," it's clear that Morrissey is an unflinching storyteller, a folk singer who accomplishes what few of his peers can manage: the creation of evocative tales that reveal the human condition without resorting to sanctimony or melodrama. It is this condition--one of lost loves, unrealized dreams, infidelity, and succumbing to an open bottle of whiskey--that Morrissey chronicles and inhabits.
The weariness of "Motels and Planes" captures the bleary existence of the traveling troubadour who swallows the bitter truth that his life's ambition has amounted to isolation. What elevates the song, and the album in general, is the absence of complaint. Never does the singer offer excuses or ask for a second chance. There are brief moments of comic relief with the hilarious "Party at the U.N." and "Car and Driver," the latter offering telling couplets of nearly every vehicle imaginable.

Professional Reviews

Rolling Stone (8/23/90) - 3.5 Stars - Very Good - "...remarkably compressed portraits..."

Option - "...may just be his best yet."