专辑简介

Erich Kunzel专辑介绍：by Richard S. GinellEver hear a square-dance caller doing his thing with a symphony orchestra? You will here, along with a bewildering variety of what is euphemistically called American folk music, gussied up for Erich Kunzel and the Cincinnati Pops. Folk music there is -- however lushly orchestrated -- but there is also mid-20th century country music, bluegrass, fiddle tunes, Stephen Foster, and what passes for true modern folk music, a medley of tunes from television's golden age of rural programming. Sometimes it gets awfully corny -- the low point being a children's chorus doing "Old MacDonald Had a Farm" at great, intolerable length with a full menagerie of sound effects (if you can sit through that, give yourself a hand). Sometimes the excess weight that some of these songs have to bear is just too much, even within the context of classical "pops." But there is compensation from the guest stars. Tom Wopat offers a gritty variation of John Denver's original vocal in "Thank God I'm a Country Boy." Country fiddler/guitarist/singer Roy Clark goes into overdrive with his band in a medley of fiddle tunes; his electric guitar solos are decidedly uptown and jazzy in tone and he slips gracefully and authentically into the role of the lonely, aging boulevardier in his hit of 22 years before, "Yesterday When I Was Young." Overall, though, this is one of the least-convincing attempts by Kunzel/the Cincinnati Pops to prove that a "pops" concert can embrace absolutely everything.