PEL Presents NEM#238: Eric Andersen Endures

You are listening to Nakedly Examined Music, a podcast about songs and songwriters. My name is Mark Lindenmayer. My guest for episode 238 is Eric Anderson. He was a major figure in the Greenwich Village folk scene in New York City in sixties. You're right now hearing his biggest hit, Violets of Dawn from Bout Changes and Things, his second album from 1966. He has just released his twenty second solo album, Dance of Love and Death. Gonna discuss the song Don't It Make You Wanna Sing the Blues from that album. Then look back to Rain Falls Down in Amsterdam from Memory of the Future 1998, then look back to Six Senses of Darkness from Ghosts Upon the Road 1989, and will conclude by A Time Run Like a Freight Train, a version from Stages The Lost album recorded in 1973. Eric's early songs have been covered by Bob Dylan, Johnny Cash, John Denver, Judy Collins, Ricky Nelson, a number of others. And in addition to those solo albums, he's released two albums with Danko Fjeld Anderson with Rick Danko from The Band. And he's also released at least seven live albums, and he also co wrote at least one song for the Grateful Dead. More information at ericanderson.com. It's Anderson, s e n. For more about this podcast, see nakedlyexaminedmusic.com, or support the effort at patreon.com/nakedlyexaminemusic for ad free episodes and access to my detailed episode notes that break down the songs, give you the lyrics, etcetera. I I will play a little bit of Violets of Dawn to warm people up. I guess one little question about your older stuff before we get to the new things. I noticed that immediately after that album, Bout Changes and Things, you redid it. Bout Changes and Things take two, but yet it's the original version. That's the one that has millions of downloads, and it seems to be the one that have made it on all the compilations. What was going on there in terms of, like, I need to redo my whole album with, I guess, a slightly higher budget? The main reason is we did it for Europe and it ended up coming out to both play. They re released it in The States, but it was for European and old Japanese release. We had done a concert at Town Hall. We liked it, so we decided we're gonna go in and let's make we'll make a version for Europe. And so we did, and it, was about to change the tape to it and the record company decided to put it out. It was their idea, not mine, and I had no control over it. Okay. I mean, I guess I I asked because I'm trying to get a handle on as a I don't wanna say folk singer because I know from other interviews you don't consider yourself solely a folk singer. But as somebody who the focus is what you can do by yourself. …