Iluminación de la luna: Vive en Ash Grove

Reseña del editor Durante más de 30 años, Van Dyke Parks ha sido una de las figuras más silenciosamente influyentes de la música pop. Como productor, arreglista y colaborador, ha contribuido a grabaciones emblemáticas de los Beach Boys y los Byrds, entre docenas de otros; como artista de grabación, es notable por una serie de obras maestras con una compleja mezcla de delicadeza musical e invención melódica. Este álbum documenta una rara actuación en vivo, respaldada por una mini-orquesta de 17 piezas. Destacados: "Orange Crate Art", "Sail Away" y "Sailin' Shoes" Amazon.com Parks has always been a moonlighter, producing albums by Little Feat and Randy Newman, writing arrangements for U2 and Victoria Williams, and composing film scores. He's also recorded half a dozen albums on his own, but he's spent most of his career in the shadow of an early failed collaboration: his work as lyricist for Brian Wilson's epic '60s disaster, Smile. Moonlighting, a live recording taken from a 1996 performance, places him in the spotlight's full glare. There may be a 17-piece band behind him, but Parks sings (by his own admission badly) and plays piano throughout, displaying the personality a bitter environmentalist one moment, and then self-assured professor the next-that drives the album. Though he's lived in California since the '60s, Parks was born in Mississippi and even without the drawl he remains a Southerner. That he's a sentimentalist is evident in the Br'er Rabbit-inspired "Jump!" and "Hominy Grove," but he also has an intellectual's appreciation for the past. Occasionally, this leads him astray; listen to his stilted version of Uncle Dave Macon's old folk tune, "C-H-I-C-K-E-N." More often it feels right, especially on a lovely orchestral remake of John Hartford's "Delta Queen Waltz" and a pair of instrumentals inspired by the 19th-century New Orleans composer, Louis Moreau Gottschalk. Moonlighting is a welcome anachronism, with its star reading a Robert Frost poem, singing a song about FDR's trip to the Caribbean before cruiseships, and reinventing Little Feat's "Sailin' Shoes" as a slide-guitar-and-strings art song. Between songs, Parks admits, "This isn't a franchise operation, folks." Thank God for that, not to mention Parks's thin voice and slightly misshapen heart. --Keith Moerer

Detalles del producto Descatalogado por el fabricante : No Idioma : Inglés Dimensiones del producto : 5,6 x 0,4 x 4,9 pulgadas; 3,36 Onzas Fabricante : Warner Records Fecha de lanzamiento original : 1998 Producto en Tienda desde : diciembre 10, 2006 Etiqueta : Warner Records ASIN : B000002NE9 País de origen : EE. UU. Número de discos : 1 Clasificación en los más vendidos de Amazon: nº217,325 en CDs y Vinilo (Ver el Top 100 en CDs y Vinilo) nº328 en Pop Barroco nº2,994 en Folk Tradicional (CDs y Vinilo) nº3,557 en Interés Especial Opiniones de clientes: 4.5 4.5 de 5 estrellas 12 calificaciones Descatalogado por el fabricante : No Idioma : Inglés Dimensiones del producto : 5,6 x 0,4 x 4,9 pulgadas; 3,36 Onzas Fabricante : Warner Records Fecha de lanzamiento original : 1998 Producto en Tienda desde : diciembre 10, 2006 Etiqueta : Warner Records ASIN : B000002NE9 País de origen : EE. UU. Número de discos : 1