PRIME CUTS

I tend to frown on compilation albums, primarily because 1. I already got all that and 2. They left out my favorites from those particular albums anyway. Prime Cuts is an exception because I hadn't been following his work in '00's (how is that pronounced anyway? the '90's are the nineties, perhaps it the naughties?)

As it turns out, I not only have none of this material, but Steve's been fairly busy in the naughties. We've got some Steve Morse Band, some Steve Morse solo, two tribute album appearances, guesting on a Jordan Rudess album, and a re-mix by Vaporspace.

My favorite piece on here is actually a cover. Back in the early days of the Dregs, they used to cover some Mahavishu Orchestra songs. Here he does a really nice cover of Rush's La Villa Strangiato. You also get Yes's Clap, mistitled as "The" Clap. I don't know why we always want to add a "The" to that song title.

All in all a good set if you haven't been introduced to the music of Steve Morse and/or the Dixie Dregs (Steve's main band from the seventies, for those who don't know). Not a bad catch up album for an old fan either.

This collection makes me want to go find the rest of the Magna Carta released Steve Morse albums. even though almost half of this collection does not come from Steve Morse albums per se.

Two of the tracks come from tribute albums. First, there is a fantastic cover of Rush's La Villa Strangiato (I know the original is perfect, but who else could cover this so well?). Morse and Bassist Billy Sheehan almost succeed in making this their own. Then there's Steve Howe's (The) Clap. This was made for Morse's fine picking style, and I think he outdoes Howe himself.

There is also Quantum Leap, from a Jordan Rudess solo album. This is a great keyboard based symphonic prog tune with another great Morse solo.

Then there's Led On. Originally a Steve Morse Band track, remixed by some "producer" calling himself some pretentious title, like Vapidspace. What make these leeches think that looping a rhythm track, and taking tiny excerpts from a song and dropping them over the rhythm at random intervals, to make something the ecstacy-numbed "ravers" can wag their butts at in interesting. It's not! Vapidspace, you created the only bad track on what could have been a great album.

The rest of the tracks are from Morse's more recent albums, the ones on Magna Carta. And true to the label's history, they are all excellent works of prog. It makes a great album by paring away the romantic and bluegrass pieces, and focusing on the best stuff.

4 stars, thanks to Vapidspace :( - it would have been a five otherwise.