'Bout Changes 'n' Things - Take 2

Where Eric Andersen’s first album, Today Is the Highway, often sounded like an artist rewriting and re-creating the romantic wistfulness of Bob Dylan’s “Girl from the North Country,” Andersen’s second album—1966’s ’Bout Changes and Things—sounds like a young man searching for his voice as one of the last Greenwich Village folkies to recognize rock ’n’ roll. (Funnily enough, he'd finally make the crossing with 1967’s ’Bout Changes and Things, Part 2, where he re-recorded these songs with a modest backing band.) Here, a version of Elvis Presley’s cover of Arthur “Big Boy” Crudup’s “That’s All Right Mama” gets a harmonica-driven interpretation, and “My Land Is a Good Land” pays tribute to Woody Guthrie. But folk ballads such as “Violets of Dawn,” “The Girl I Love,” and “Close the Door Lightly When You Go” are classics; they show where Andersen’s style would surface in the early '70s. “Thirsty Boots” became one of the last folk anthems of the '60s detailing the civil rights movement. The weirdest track is “The Hustler,” where Andersen sounds unsure whether he’s criticizing Bob Dylan or paying tribute to the musician who remained several steps ahead of the pack.