The Long Ryders
★★★★ Two Fisted Tales CHERRY RED. CD
LA’s Paisley-tinged Americana pioneers’ final album, released in 1987, now expanded to three discs. OPTIMISM abounded amid The Long Ryders’ camp during the Two Fisted Tales’ sessions at A&M Studios in Hollywood, after 1985’s breakthrough with State Of Our Union (also available as an expanded edition) and its single Looking For Lewis And Clark. Indeed, the music here ranks as some of the group’s finest: a roadhouse rockin’ Gunslinger Man, a jangly reading of NRBQ’s I Want You Bad, with Byrdsian harmonies from The Bangles; The Light Gets In The Way, an infectious zydeco driven by Los Lobos’s David Hidalgo on accordion; the potent protest folk of Harriet Tubman’s Gonna Carry Me Home. The extras provide context. Disc two’s 20 demos, 11 previously unissued, reveal a group fully prepared going into the studio; disc three’s live set at Palm Springs, meanwhile, shows what able musicians they were.