Frank Marino Tribute "Secondhand Smoke" REVIEWS

[Wild Willy]

Had to clean up the thread. It was getting entirely off base. :winky

[rick]

I'm going to say, on the track Ronnie Montrose did, 'Try For Freedom', he outdid everybody. He concentrated entirely on the song. To me, I think he kind of put a Beatle's vibe into it, say from the '67 psychedelic period. That's what I hear and that's who I vote the best song on the CD to be.

[ToddF]

The packaging that Willy and Norman Marino came up with is great. The packaging alone is an instant classic to me.

Without nit picking and going into great detail on the tunes, I guess I'm in the minority so far, but I thought George Lynch did a great job on "In My Ways"
The playing and sound of the tune were good, and the vocalist is great.

The drummer was actually making it interesting and the singer really nailed it
by not overdoing it and phrasing the lyrics nicely.....Jeff Pilson, you have a great smooth voice and a lot of overall talent playing the bass and Engineering the tune!!

I think with a little tweaking this version could get radio air play and possibly be a minor hit.

After listening to the whole thing, one thing became obvious to me, Frank's lyrics are very powerful regardless of who sings them, and that part of him is probably even stronger than his guitar playing.

John Norum did a great job as well.

[ToddF]

I agree Blahmcduh, the drum sound fooled me on "In My Ways", I thought it was a real drummer. I don't like machines for drumming, but this sounded realistic to me.

[garyd]

Way to go Willy nice job. I really like the quotes from the different artist.
fav song is "In My Ways"

[Bad Rain]

Damn. I just now realised that Jennifer Batten was the female guitar player with Michal Jackson's live band in their huge tours in late 80's and 90's. Pretty wild stuff like the note-by-note Eddie Van Halen solo in 'Beat It'.

[Ze Finnish Line]

Jenny has been touring with Jeff Beck as well. And I think it can be heard in "He's Calling" as well.

[DT]

OK, here are my thoughts.

I've listened to the entire CD three times now, and I have to be honest and say that it took me all three listens to get used to the different arrangements and the way that the vast majority of the songs have a very different vibe from Frank's original versions. I'm not really sure what I was expecting, but initially, I was surprised at how different many of the songs sounded.

There were some exceptions: Like blacmduch noted, Stay With Me is almost identical to Frank's version, and a few other songs are pretty close to the originals, but most of the arrangements sounded very different to me, at least on the first listen.

Still, in deference to the artists' creative license, I wanted to give the CD an opportunity to grow on me a bit, and so I listened to the whole thing three times. With the exception of maybe a song or two, everything got better the more I listened to it.

All that said, I think I'm going to go with Rick's version of Poppy as my favorite track. Rick did a great job on blending his own individual expression into an appropriate allegiance to the original. James Byrd's World Anthem was probably a close second, as it sounds really well-produced and creates an aura of symphonic majesty that is a great way to close the CD.

Kudos also to Alvin Youngblood Hart for his really nice vocals on It's Begun to Rain.

My compliments to Willy and everyone who created this great tribute.

[JaminJim]

I recieved the CD yesterday and gave it a couple of listens. At first it was refreshing to hear such differences from the original versions. It was obvious that the artists had intentionally tried to make it sound differently that the original. The artists all tried to make the songs sound more contemporary which I feel did not always work, I don't want to site any examples right now. Most of the vocals sounded good for the most part, but no where near Frank's. As for the guitar playing, they all used that contemporary sound and style. The guitar techniques were excellent. As for the guitar sounds, they sounded like generic crap. WTF are delays now out of vogue. Is switching sound patches in a song also out of vogue. Why is everyone so afraid to sound different. The guitar sounds were very boxy and focused as opposed to sounding more open. Everyone sounds as if they playing a LesPaul or a quacky Strato with scratchy distortion, following each other like a herd of sheep sound wise.

Unfortunatly this is not a CD that I will be listening to again and probably be relegated to the collection bin.

Don't forget to share your true feeling with us, Joe,lmao [!!]?

[JoeR]

I stand by what I wrote previously. The arrangements were nice. The singing was nice. I thank Willy for his efforts to produce this CD. The guitar playing was excellent. But I think that the artists could have taken a little more chances on the guitar sounds themselves and not latch onto a kindof proven formula type of sound. All in all I think the CD is very good but personally its not something I'd listen to on a regular basis. Just my 2 centavos.

I don't mean to be such a preud JJ but your avtar one of these days is going to give me an epileptic seizure.