Streets of New York [Digipak] (CD - 2006)

Personnel: Willie Nile (vocals, guitar, piano, Fender Rhodes piano, organ); Willie Nile; Eddie Nystrom (acoustic guitar); Stewart Lerman (electric guitar); Andy Burton (piano, organ); Rob Hyman (toy piano, Hammond b-3 organ, keyboards); Bruce Brody (Hammond b-3 organ); Brian Mitchell (Wurlitzer organ); Brad Albetta (acoustic bass, acoustic bass guitar, electric bass, bass guitar); Andy York (guitar, piano, organ, Mellotron, tambourine, background vocals); Larry Campbell (cittern, mandolin, fiddle); Frankie Lee (drums, congas, percussion, background vocals); Richard Pagano (drums, percussion, background vocals); Jakob Dylan (background vocals).

Audio Mixers: Richard Pagano; Jamey Staub; Stewart Lerman.

Recording information: Crushing Studios, New York, NY; Elmstreet Studios, Conshohocken, PA; Monkey boy Studios, New York, NY; New Calcutta Recordings, New York, NY; The Rooftop, New York, NY; The Shinebox, New York, NY.

Photographers: Luke Noonan; Jeff Fasano.

This 2006 release was something of a comeback for singer/songwriter Willie Nile. Although there are no major stylistic changes here, its four-chord simplicity, bare-bones passion, and often politically charged lyrics charmed many critics and fans who were bored or alienated by the over-produced excesses of even the alternative music of the day. A cover of Eddie Grant's "Police on my Back" reinforced the Clash comparisons, and Nile's voice often veers into Bob Dylan territory, but Nile has always worn his influences on his sleeve. It's a forgivable offense when the influences are so good.

If early 2006 is remembered for nothing else, it will go down in history for the two greatest urban Americana albums of the 21st century to date -- Dion's Bronx in Blue and Willie Nile's Streets of New York, a swaggering braggart of a disc that is to the modern Apple everything that Lou Reed's New York was 15 years before. The opening "Welcome to My Head" sets the stage, raising the curtain on a fantasy vision of the city nightlife that sums up every dream Broadway and beyond have ever instilled in the mind of the outsider, and set to a crunchy guitar melody that is as real as the streets that stretch out from there. It might be Nile's first album in six years, but it sounds as though he's been planning it his entire life -- even the songs that slip outside of the city concept ("Asking Annie Out" is the first) share the crowded, bustling air of the more "relevant" rockers, while "The Day I Saw Bo Diddley in Washington Square" paints the scene so firmly that you'll see him, too. Even more impressively, the backing rarely motors in the directions you'd expect. Fiddles keen and a mandolin pounds, while Nile borrowed his band from as far afield as John Mellencamp and Rosanne Cash. Further captivating imagery spills from "Faded Flower of Broadway," celebrating a primitivist artist who still sells her paintings on the street at 80 years of age and, though it's a cover, a pounding "Police on My Back," purposefully cut in rent-a-Clash mode as a tribute to Joe Strummer, and just as powerful as its illustrious forbear. One song steps away from New York entirely -- the impossibly eerie "Cell Phones Ringing (In the Pockets of the Dead)" was written following the Madrid train bombings of March 2004. Of course, there's barely a soul in the city who won't be able to identify with the emotion that lies behind the lyrics, or the nightmare scenario that peels out around them. But that is not the only song on this album that one could say that about; indeed, if you haven't been to New York recently, Nile might just have saved you the fare. Streets of New York is that powerful. ~ Dave Thompson minimize