5 best CDs of 2008 - Reissues

The epic continues....



1) All of the U2 reissues ~ Boy, October, War & Under A Blood Red Sky - To get remasters of these classic CDs would have been enough for me. Bono and the guys did this one step better including a whole extra CD or DVD of demos, live versions and rarities.



2) Johnny Cash ~ At Folsom Prison - Deluxe Edition - The full originally released LP with the tracks eliminated from that show and a whole other CD of the whole of the second show he played there. Great additions to the Cash legacy.



3) Rob Dickinson ~ Fresh Wine For The Horses - Now including a second CD of live material largely culled from Catherine Wheel songs played acoustic. Black Metallic, IMHO, NEVER sounded this good to me before.



4) Steve Earle ~ Copperhead Road - Deluxe Edition - The original set, one of my favorite CDs by him, remixed and remastered with a second CD of 17 live tracks from his 1988 tour. In college everybody had this LP and I do mean everybody. A local radio station had been given what had to be about 1000 of them and everyone I hung around with got a copy of it from there. I am glad to say now that I FINALLY purchased this set.



5) Billy Joel ~ The Stranger - 30th Anniversary Legacy Edition - My 2nd favorite Billy Joel LP, the 1st favorite being Glass Houses, Remastered and remixed with a full show from 1978.

Honorable Mentions - Warren Zevon ~ Warren Zevon, Liz Phair ~ Exile in Guyville, Lynyrd Skynyrd ~ Street Survivors, Dennis Wilson ~ Pacific Ocean Blue - Legacy Edition & The Lemonheads ~ It's A Shame About Ray

Awake and realizing I have no coffee here...

So yesterday was the debut/test of this new thing I am trying to do and as I wandered through the rest of my day I was thinking....Do I REALLY want to do a music blog? To which I also thought, there are bunches of blogs out there focused on music yet none that cover MY favorites all the time. I NEED to do this. So here I am back blogging. I think this will evolve into a fun type of outlet...once I get to doing it more consistantly. I am going to try to put up here musings and tunes that haven't been previously available to the listening/reading public via the blogs. Maybe it will work maybe not. Perhaps I am fooling myself and I have no ability to do what I want to do...One doesn't know until one tries.

So I thought I should build on yesterday and explain why I put up the Ray Davies...."Working Man's Cafe" is by far my favorite CD released this past year. The only way it could have been better was if he had gotten together with his brother and made the The Kinks reunion CD that everyone has been anticipating for the past 3 or 4 years at least.

For today I am gonna put up my favorite track from Steve Earle's latest "Washington Square Serenade". Solid effort by him on this whole set. Special notice should be given to the track "Days Aren't Long Enough" a beautiful duet with Allison Moorer and my second favorite from the CD. It sounds to me like Mr. Earle has finally gotten a complete set of tunes that fit together perfectly. It's about time.

Steve Earle ~ Jericho Road