American Ride

Had Willie Nile's career not gotten jammed up with legal issues in the early '80s, there's a chance he'd be as well-known as Bruce Springsteen, Tom Petty, and John Hiatt: three other rock singer/songwriters with street sense and poetry. Nile, however, spent too many early years out of the picture, with long gaps in recording and touring. He then recorded four studio albums in the '00s, each filled with songs attuned to the old-school rock 'n' roll spirit of his youth. Here, Nile's road band and a few studio holdovers join him for yet another romantic set of tunes. Whether it's the ready-made anthem "This Is Our Time," the leather-jacket love song "She's Got My Heart," or the unflinching cover of Jim Carroll's "People Who Died" (sung in tribute to Nile's brother John), Nile gives everything he has, with arrangements that stick to the timeless setup of guitar, Hammond B3 organ, bass, and drums. This special edition adds three bonus cuts: "Occupy," a heartbreaking acoustic demo of "The Motel Life," and a new version of "One Guitar," a highlight from his 2010 album The Innocent Ones.