''17 Pine Avenue'' is an album by the

country rock Country rock is a genre of music which fuses rock and country. It was developed by rock musicians who began to record country-flavored records in the late 1960s and early 1970s. These musicians recorded rock records using country themes, vocal s ...

band the

New Riders of the Purple Sage New Riders of the Purple Sage is an American country rock band. The group emerged from the psychedelic rock scene in San Francisco in 1969 and its original lineup included several members of the Grateful Dead. The band is sometimes referred ...

. It was released on March 6, 2012. ''17 Pine Avenue'' is the New Riders' second studio album, and third album overall, to feature their post-2005 lineup of David Nelson on guitar,

Buddy Cage Buddy Cage (February 18, 1946 – February 5, 2020) was an American pedal steel guitarist, best known as a longtime member of the New Riders of the Purple Sage.

on pedal steel guitar,

Michael Falzarano Michael Falzarano is an American guitarist, singer, and songwriter. He has been a professional musician since the 1970s, most notably in Hot Tuna, the New Riders of the Purple Sage, and the Memphis Pilgrims, a Memphis-style rock and roll/blues b ...

on guitar,

Ronnie Penque Ronnie Penque (born March 23, 1962) is a bassist, singer and songwriter who has been working in the music industry for over 30 years. He has been the bassist for the country rock band New Riders of the Purple Sage since 2005. The New Riders eme ...

on bass, and Johnny Markowski on drums. As on the band's previous effort, '' Where I Come From'', the music for seven of the twelve songs was written by Nelson, with lyrics by Robert Hunter, who wrote the lyrics for many

Grateful Dead The Grateful Dead was an American rock music, rock band formed in 1965 in Palo Alto, California. The band is known for its eclectic style, which fused elements of rock, Folk music, folk, country music, country, jazz, bluegrass music, bluegrass, ...

songs.

Critical reception

On Jambands.com, Brian Robbins wrote, "Listen: if somehow you've missed crossing paths with the New Riders of the Purple Sage since their 2005 renaissance, then you need to understand something. This is not a band of tired, tie-dyed troubadours seeing out their later years, going through the motions and rehashing their greatest hits — these crazy bastards are still full of life; full of fire; full of ''music''. ''17 Pine Avenue'' is the latest round of proof: a killer studio album featuring a dozen cuts that show off the depth of the band's talent and their passion for what they're doing. In short, this is no oldies band, boys and girls — this is a happening thang.... Getting older? Who says? I'll have whatever ''they're'' having, barkeep." On AcousticMusic.com, Mark S. Tucker said, "With 27 albums and 9 compilations under their belt, you could say the New Riders of the Purple Sage have been pretty damn successful, and this latest release, ''17 Pine Avenue'', does nothing to tarnish that record—in fact pretty much epitomizes what the ensemble has always been about—being a very impressive disc that can still boast the presence of founding members David Nelson and Buddy Cage along with the same three cats who made 2009's ''Where I Come From'' a success.... Not a cut here is less than superb, and if there's any justice in the music world, releases like this will serve to reinvigorate the fading cowpunk movement 'cause this one's going to stun listeners in their tracks." On

Allmusic AllMusic (previously known as All Music Guide and AMG) is an American online music database. It catalogs more than three million album entries and 30 million tracks, as well as information on musicians and bands. Initiated in 1991, the databas ...

, J. Poet wrote, "Longtime Grateful Dead lyricist Robert Hunter contributes words to seven of the album's 12 tracks, bringing his customary psychedelic sheen to the material.... "Fivio" is a triumphant love song that's a reinvention of the traditional Irish tune popularized by the

Clancy Brothers The Clancy Brothers were an influential Irish folk music group that developed initially as a part of the American folk music revival. Most popular during the 1960s, they were famed for their Aran jumper sweaters and are widely credited with pop ...

and features Michael Falzarano's chiming guitar and sighing pedal steel by Cage. "Suite at the Mission" is a cryptic meditation on life's vicissitudes full of dark humor; it's marked by more sparkling pedal steel from Cage and a world-weary vocal from Nelson. The title track is a bluesy shuffle crammed with mind-bending images that compares favorably to the Dead classic "

Truckin' "Truckin" is a song by the Grateful Dead, which first appeared on their 1970 album ''American Beauty (album), American Beauty''. It was recognized by the United States Library of Congress in 1997 as a national treasure.''Grateful Dead: The Illus ...

". It's one of the album's strongest songs and Nelson delivers it with a jaunty, insouciant air."

Track listing

#"Prisoner of Freedom" ( David Nelson, Robert Hunter) – 5:27 #"Message in a Bottle" (Nelson, Hunter) – 4:02 #"Fivio" (Nelson, Hunter) – 5:56 #"Just the Way It Goes" (

) – 4:27 #"17 Pine Avenue" (Nelson, Hunter) – 5:14 #"Down for the Ride" ( Johnny Markowski) – 3:56 #"No Time" (Nelson, Hunter) – 5:32 #"Shake That Thing" (

) – 4:47 #"Suite at the Mission" (Nelson, Hunter) – 7:50 #"I Know There's Someone Else" (Markowski) – 3:41 #"Six of One" (Nelson, Hunter) – 4:50 #"Truth Is Dead" (traditional, arranged by NRPS, lyrics by Falzarano) – 3:31

Personnel

;New Riders of the Purple Sage * David Nelson –

guitar The guitar is a fretted musical instrument that typically has six strings. It is usually held flat against the player's body and played by strumming or plucking the strings with the dominant hand, while simultaneously pressing selected stri ...

vocals Singing is the act of creating musical sounds with the voice. A person who sings is called a singer, artist or vocalist (in jazz and/or popular music). Singers perform music (arias, recitatives, songs, etc.) that can be sung with or without ...

Buddy Cage Buddy Cage (February 18, 1946 – February 5, 2020) was an American pedal steel guitarist, best known as a longtime member of the New Riders of the Purple Sage.

–

pedal steel guitar The pedal steel guitar is a Console steel guitar, console-type of steel guitar with pedals and knee levers that change the pitch of certain strings to enable playing more varied and complex music than any previous steel guitar design. Like all s ...

– guitar, vocals *

– bass, vocals * Johnny Markowski –

drums A drum kit (also called a drum set, trap set, or simply drums) is a collection of drums, cymbals, and other Percussion instrument, auxiliary percussion instruments set up to be played by one person. The player (drummer) typically holds a pair o ...

, vocals ;Additional musicians *

Professor Louie Aaron L. Hurwitz, known by the stage name Professor Louie, is an American singer-songwriter, musician, and record producer who is best known for producing three studio albums for The Band, as well as being the founder and producer for the Grammy ...

–

Hammond organ The Hammond organ is an electric organ invented by Laurens Hammond and John M. Hanert and first manufactured in 1935. Multiple models have been produced, most of which use sliding drawbars to vary sounds. Until 1975, Hammond organs generated s ...

on tracks 4, 6, 8, 10,

accordion Accordions (from 19th-century German ''Akkordeon'', from ''Akkord''—"musical chord, concord of sounds") are a family of box-shaped musical instruments of the bellows-driven free-reed aerophone type (producing sound as air flows past a reed ...

on track 2 *Lizzy Friel – backing vocals on tracks 1, 2, 7, 9 *Christian Cassan –

percussion A percussion instrument is a musical instrument that is sounded by being struck or scraped by a beater including attached or enclosed beaters or rattles struck, scraped or rubbed by hand or struck against another similar instrument. Exc ...

;Production *

– producer, mixing *Bobby Driscoll – executive producer *Larry Levin – recording *Brad Kotzmoyer – recording *Christian Cassan – mixing *Ed Littman – mastering *Kevin Morgan – art *Mike Tut – photo *Captain Toast – road manager *ScareKrow – live sound *DeLacey – stage tech and merchandise *Rob Bleetstein – band historian *Blue Mountain Artists – booking agent

References

{{Authority control New Riders of the Purple Sage albums 2012 albums