The first thing that stands out about Eric Andersen's album Ghosts Upon the Road is the picture of Andersen himself staring directly out of the cover and into your eyes. At first glance, he appears to be a haggard, hard-luck individual, but when you stare back into the image on the cover, the gruff appearance is transformed into a quiet, gentle soul. Andersen's voice comes across the same way. It sounds a little rough and tired, but after a careful listen, Andersen's voice reveals itself to be tender and understanding.
With a batallion of acoustic guitars, shimmering back-up vocals supplied by Shawn Colvin, and atmospheric keyboards, Ghosts Upon the Road is a typical modern folk album. "Typical" in this case means that it's better than 90% of the music you can normally find on your radio dial. Andersen's imagery is gritty and a little too honest to be comfortable, and he tends to take a song to its stark, silent depths. For the enlightened who have their CD rack filled with Green Linnet and Philo/Rounder albums, Ghosts Upon the Road nestles itself fairly well next to modern folk greats such as Bill Morrissey or possibly David Wilcox.
Listeners without a background in modern folk will note that Ghosts Upon the Road was produced by Steve Addabbo who has worked with Suzanne Vega and Shawn Colvin. In fact, the album features many of Vega's band from the Solitude Standing era including keyboardist Anton Sanko and bassist Michael Visceglia. Also prominent on the album are John Leventhal on guitar and Andy Newmark on percussion. Andersen chooses a different musical path than Vega. His songs are not as pop oriented, and the lyrics are often musical portraits of past journeys. What this means in practical terms is that Andersen inspires eyes closed contemplation instead of chorus sing-alongs.
Ghosts Upon the Road was originally released in 1988 and has now been re-released on Plump Records. However, re-releases seem to be a large part of Andersen's career. Andersen was part of the early folk and singer- songwriter scene in the 60's that included such luminaries as Tom Paxton, Judy Collins, and Bob Dylan, and he had his big break in 1972 with the album, Blue River. The follow-up album to Blue River was to be a classic, but the master-tapes mysteriously disappeared before any copies were made.
The loss devastated Andersen's career, and for almost 20 years, his music just wasn't the same. It wasn't until the 1988 release of Ghosts Upon the Road that Anderson re-emerged in the U.S. Then, in 1991, his lost album was miraculously recovered and released as Stages: The Lost Album. Since then, Andersen has released a few albums on Rykodisc with Rick Danko of The Band and Norwegian artist, Jonas Fjeld, under the name of "Danko Fjeld Andersen", and Plump Records has re-released Ghosts Upon the Road.
For more information on Eric Andersen, contact Plump Records at 1-800- PlumpCD or on the internet at Plumprec@aol.com.
