Track Listing

1. Pushkin
2. Blokbuster
3. Wolf Among Wolves
4. May It Always Be
5. Break Of Day
6. A Sucker�s Evening
7. Nomadic Revery
8. I See A Darkness
9. O Let It Be
10. Beast For Thee
11. Death To Everyone
12. Even If Love
13. I Send My Love To You
14. Take However Long You Want
15. Madeleine Mary
16. Ease Down The Road

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #36275 in Music
• Released on: 2005-10-31
• Number of discs: 1
• Format: Live
• Dimensions: .21 pounds

Amazon.co.uk Review
Will Oldham has reinterpreted his old music before, but live set Summer In The Southeast--recorded in front of appreciative crowds in Florida, Georgia, Mississipi, and Alabama--is a far more interesting rereading than 2004’s sometimes kitsch Nashville homage Greatest Palace Music. Fronting a band comprised of former Zwan man Matt Sweeney, brother Ned Oldham, and a cast of floating Bonnie ‘Prince’ collaborators, dusty old Palace song-sketches like "Pushkin" and "A Sucker’s Evening" gain new life, born up on vital swells of guitar and sweet female backing vocals courtesy of guesting folk singer Sara ‘Pink Nasty’ Beck. "Wolf Among Wolves" is an early highlight, the band baying their appreciation during the instrumental breaks. But it’s the rockier moments, so uncharacteristic of Oldham, that are the winners: the take on "O Let It Be" that shrieks in like a cyclone, or the psychedelic cacophony of "Madeline Mary". Dyed-in-the-wool Palace fans might be standing up, shaking a fist, and hollering "Judas!", but ignore them – this is the ideal way of levelling a rocky, confusing recording career. --Louis Pattison

CD Description
'Summer In The Southeast' is the first ever live album fromWill Oldham AKA Bonnie 'Prince' Billy. Recorded in ten Southern US states on his 2004 tour, the album features seventeen live reworkings of some of Oldham's most popular songs. Each track has being given a different feel to their recorded counterpart by the ever changing backing band that toured with Oldham thoughout 2004.

Customer Reviews

Superb
I'm a huge fan of ;Master and Everyone, but this is an altogether different proposition. Intimate, soothing recordings have suddenly become edgy, fleshed out, guitar based, but no less soulful. Death to Everyone and O Let It Be are just extraordinary. It's rare that I buy an album and it just fits like an old shoe - but this one does. Superb!

Bonnie great.
You’ll be hard pressed to find a review about Will Oldham that doesn’t contain the word ‘enigmatic’. Certainly, Oldham has a reputation for being grumpy and uncooperative. However, his talent is never in doubt, something reinforced by the release by Drag City of Oldham’s first live album.

Whether working as Palace, his own name, or Bonnie “Prince” Billy, Oldham’s albums are never particularly embellished with production trickery, but Summer In The Southeast allows an even greater focus on the songs themselves. Master and Everyone erupts in a way it didn’t when housed on the 2003 album of the same name, while the classic Appalachian sound of Nomadic Revery is enriched by the live recording and the fragility of fatalistic anthem, I See A Darkness, means it almost disappears altogether until its emotional crescendo. And there are yet more changes to mainstays of Oldham’s catalogue, I Send My Love To You gets a full boom-click-boom country makeover. May It Always Be is noisily transformed from the version on 2002’s Ease Down The Road album, while the Celtic folk of Madeleine Mary gets a bluesy makeover. O Let It Be from 1997’s Joya is the album’s one true rock song. But it is the repertoire of love songs that has Oldham at his most tender; the barely-there melody of Beast For Thee is one of the set’s standout moments.

Bar some irritating whooping from the typically excitable US audience, of which I dare say Oldham wouldn’t have approved, this is an enjoyable listen from beginning to end.

Beauty and Power
First ever live album from Will Oldham and it's rather fine. His six-piece band remake and remodel his back catalogue with some extraordinary results - brother Paul furnishes a bass rumble of weighty oomph and guitarist (and Superwolf collaborator), Matt Sweeney, adds considerable six-sting shimmer to proceedings. For those for whom Oldham's words are all important, the songs retain, as always, starring roles. "Wolf Among Wolves" is sublime, even with the howling. "O Let It Be" wigs out magnificently and "Beast For Thee" maintains its devotional, old testament impact.