Over the Edge and Back

''The Best of Mickey Hart: Over the Edge and Back'' is a retrospective album by Mickey Hart. It was released by Rykodisc Records on April 23, 2002, in two formats — CD, and DVD-Audio. It contains music excerpted from six of Hart's albums – ''Diga'' (1976), ''The Apocalypse Now Sessions'' (1980), ''At the Edge'' (1990), ''Planet Drum'' (1991), '' Mickey Hart's Mystery Box'' (1996), and ''Supralingua'' (1998). It also contains one previously unreleased track.

Fellow Grateful Dead members Bill Kreutzmann and Phil Lesh perform on the track "Compound", and Jerry Garcia plays guitar synthesizer on "The Eliminators".

Creation of the album

Micky Hart selected the tracks for ''Over the Edge and Back'', and remixed them in stereo for the CD, and in 5.1 surround sound for the DVD-Audio.

In a 2002 interview, Hart said, "I'm not really up for 'Best of's to be honest with you.... My stuff doesn't really play like that 'Best of' in one CD because I'm all over the map, from the rhythm to the melody and the harmony, the ''Apocalypse'' essions the Olympics. I try to make it go together, but it just barely holds as a CD. If you look at it as individual tracks, they're terrific, but, usually, when you make a CD there’s a motif. Usually you compose the songs at the same time, so they have a certain kind of continuity to it. This doesn’t have that kind of continuity. So, I didn't try. I gave up on the continuity part because it covered 20 years of my life."

Critical reception

On Allmusic, Hal Horowitz wrote, "This is a reasonable but far too brief overview of Mickey Hart's six world music releases for the Rykodisc label.... The original albums this material was extracted from are a better, more appropriate way to enjoy the music, especially considering the relatively short 47–minute playing time... As it stands, it's an adequate, listenable, but frustratingly limited taste of Mickey Hart's world music side projects."

Track listing

#"Angola" (Sikiru Adepoju, David Garibaldi, Mickey Hart, Giovanni Hidalgo, Zakir Hussain, Bakithi Kumalo) – 4:50 – from ''Supralingua''
#"Where Love Goes (Sito)" ( Robert Hunter, Hart, The Mint Juleps, Babatunde Olatunji, Hussain, Hidalgo) – 7:34 – from '' Mickey Hart's Mystery Box''
#"Down the Road" (Hunter, Hart, Dave Jenkins, Vince Welnick, Hidalgo) – 5:25 – from ''Mickey Hart's Mystery Box''
#"Sweet Sixteen" (Hart, Hussain) – 8:05 – from ''Diga''
#"The Eliminators" (Creek Hart, Mickey Hart, Taro S. Hart, Jerry Garcia) – 4:49 – from ''At the Edge''
#"Udu Chant" (Adepoju, Hart, Hussein, Airto Moreira) – 4:14 – from ''Planet Drum''
#"Temple Caves" (Adepoju, Hart, Hussein, Moreira, Olatunji) – 3:20 – from ''Planet Drum''
#"Compound" (Hart, Mike Hinton, Moreira) – 3:18 – from ''The Apocalypse Now Sessions''
#"Call to All Nations" (Philip Glass, Hart, Hidalgo, Hussein) – 5:13 – previously unreleased; recorded for the opening ceremonies of the 1996 Summer Olympics

Personnel

*Mickey Hart – production, mixing
*Tom Flye – mixing
*Howard Cohen – production coordinator
*Liz DeLong – production coordinator
*Ferenc Dobronyi – cover illustration
*Steven Jurgensmeyer – design

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Best of Mickey Hart: Over the Edge and Back
Mickey Hart albums
2002 albums
Rykodisc compilation albums