Jackson Browne Returns To His Roots

Jackson Browne
Solo Acoustic, Vol. 2
Inside Records
3 teaspoons of Bosco (out of 5)

Reviewed by Allen Bacon
Editor
Bosco: The Blog

When Jackson Browne was just a lad attending Sunny Hills High School in Fullerton, California he used to sit out on the front lawn of the school and play his guitar and sing his songs. A lot of people thought he was a strange young man at the time. But times have changed. For the past four decades many people come to his concerts and spend lots of money to hear him play guitar and piano, sing while listening to his cynical views on the state of the government.

The great thing about his Solo Acoustic, Volume 2 record is it is a return to those days on the Sunny Hills campus or the Orange County coffee houses (which by the way, he rarely acknowledges) and we hear stripped down versions of his vast body of work.

The not so great thing about his Solo Acoustic Volume 2 is well, it's Solo Acoustic Volume 2. All the songs we really wanted to hear like Lives in the Balance, Take It Easy, and the Pretender were on the Grammy nominated 2005 album Solo Acoustic Volume 1.

Personally, unless I'm at his concert, I don't want to hear acoustic versions of Redneck Friend or Somebody's Baby. The originals were just fine. And I don't want to pay money to hear his political views which he likes to talk about between songs. Let the music and songwriting speak for itself unless he is ready to run for political office and when I'm ready to read his viewpoints I can always go to his website. What I do want now is some new recorded original songwriting and music from Jackson Browne.

It has now been six years since his last album of original material. He has only recorded one of those this decade. You would think with his stance against the current administration that he would be a little more prolific with the songwriting instead of rehashing old material from the Reagan Administration and applying it to today.