Best known as the author of “Wild Thing” and “Angel of the Morning,” elder Texas songwriter Chip Taylor returned to music-making after a career in professional gambling with an intensity usually reserved for someone much younger and hungrier. New Songs of Freedom is a seven-song mini-album supplemented by spoken word interludes and a 25-minute track entitled “The Making of Dance With a Hole In Your Shoe” that traces the artistic process in great, enthralling multi-take detail. Three tracks were rescued from Taylor’s politically charged 2001 album Black and Blue America while the remaining tunes preview material from his prolific resurgence as a major singer-songwriter. No matter the tunes’ origins, everything comes together under Taylor’s modest, earthy tone and the quiet ensemble playing that adds an inner radiating joy to “Sunshine’s A Waterfall,” includes a poignant look at forgotten jungle soldiers who fought alongside Americans in Laos (“Former American Soldier”), and goes for a beatnik poetry on “Dance With A Hole In Your Shoe.”
- James McMurtry
- Reckless Kelly
- Bruce Springsteen
- Crosby, Stills & Nash