Comments for America, Live!

Crisp, high quality sound, especially the piano & acoustic guitars sounding quite interesting. Best performances are Tin Man, Old Man Took, Company/Hollywood and Sergeant Darkness (especially nice). Arrangements on Horse With No Name are wonderful. Some performances are misreads, however, such as I Need You and Sister Golden Hair which is an utter train wreck. Worth buying for the sake of Sergeant Darkness and Company/Hollywood.

Underrated. A good, mellow album, perfect for a summer afternoon. The string section adds a great deal - love the intro to "Horse With No Name." A lot of the cuts actually improve on the original: "Old Man Took," "Company," "Hollywood." Some could have been hits in and of themselves: especially "Amber Cascades" and "Another Try."

I agree about "I Need You" being an off track on this one. Gerry's voice is even off-key at one point!! The addition of strings is a classic George Martin touch, and works beautifully on "Horse." It's a great album, especially with outstanding tracks like "Company/Hollywood," but as it was recorded just a couple months after Dan Peek left, the performance seems decidedly awkward. Without Dan's blazing electric guitar, the group resorts to all sorts of gimmicks, such as Tom Walsh's various sonic adventures with percussion and xylophones, but it doesn't quite come off the same, even with Martin's strings. Eventually, this problem in concert was filled by the genious of Mike Woods. Check out "Live In Central Park" to see how much their live sound changed in the two years after Dan's departure.

Not a bad album, but I thought it was too heavily produced for a live album. George Martin tried to make it sound like a studio album. If you want to here what America really sounded like live I would recommend the "Horse With No Name" CD or the King Biscuit CD.

Too much "Vegas." This was the album that started their commercial decline. It didn''t even crack the top 100 on the charts dispite including many songs that had been hits just a few years earlier. A disappointing effort.

Not your typical live concert album-this one produced with George Martin (again) with live strings.