Borders

Though he called his fourth album 12 Songs of Good and Evil, Cliff Eberhardt spent more time examining the line between the two, so it was appropriate to call the follow-up Borders. Like its predecessor, it was a self-produced effort that eschewed the rock band instrumentation of his first three albums for stripped-down arrangements more suggestive of Eberhardt's sound in concert. Actually, here, without adding personnel, he added instrumentation, often overdubbing several lines of electric and acoustic guitar, dobro, piano, bass, and percussion. But the focus was still on his singing, which brought out the songs' blues and gospel influences clearly. Eberhardt accentuated such styles by writing spare, simply structured songs like "Why Is the Road So Long" and "Lines." Though he was less obsessed with romance than he had been, you still got the sense of a traveling character struggling to maintain romance despite his itinerant profession in "The Long Goodbye" and other songs. But Eberhardt could also turn out a historical effort cued to the album's theme in "The Wrong Side of the Line," a Civil War lament. Possibly short of material, he turned to his trunk for "Isn't That The Way Things Are" and "Unrequited," the latter one of his most beautiful songs and, until now, never included on one of his regular albums. He also rerecorded "Your Face," one of the strongest songs from his debut album. The result was a good cross-section of his old and new work that would serve as a good souvenir for those who attended his concerts.