John Cupp | Chiloquin, OR United States | 08/22/2005
(5 out of 5 stars)
"As some of you know from my other reviews I am a tool columnist and writer but I am a song writer also, plus I play Blues Guitar. Early in my teens I was listening to some pirate radio in the SF Bay area and heard this album the first time it played on air. I haunted every record shop for miles around and finally ordered it from a more that hip shop in Palo Alto CA. Those vocals of Tracy and that imaginative Marvel song that should be in every new Comic book remake movie were haunting. I lost the album to a thief in the late 1980's and I only had a very old tape I made of it that had been played too many times.
What a Joy to have the Album again, I had tears of joy listening to Tracy belt out Mother Earth. Since that Album I have seen Tracy perform live many times and I bought her newer albums like I was addicted to her voice. More than any other blues performer, Tracy made me practice my blues guitar solos and sing. Now that album that started my love of blues is back in my arms. Sure I heard a lot of the Delta blues greats but Tracy made me fall in love with her voice and persona.. If I were given a choice of meeting Eric Clapton, B.B. King or Tracy Nelson I would choose Tracey Nelson hands down. Tracy has some very good other albums but this Album changed my life forever so as far as I am concerned it is my number one album.
If you are looking for perfection then this Album may disappoint you but if you are looking for a model record that changed the way white America looked at the Blues art form then this stands as a testament to that change. I finally have my album back that I missed and mourned for, for years. After all these years I can play Blues and sing some of the classic blues songs but not without Tracy there by my side pushing me on. Thank you for releasing this on CD, I am a teenager again and more in love with the blues than ever.
John Cupp
"
Finally on CD!
M. Conklin | near Austin, TX | 11/10/2004
(4 out of 5 stars)
"Always one of my favorite LPs from the period, and now I can replace my "homemade" CD of it (from vinyl)!
Everything the other reviewer said I agree with, except for the small correction that "Toad" Andrews played guitar rather than bass. Also worth mentioning is the appearance of legendary guitarist Mike Bloomfield, appearing, due to contractual obligations, as "Makal Blumenfeld" or some such spelling.
Great singing by Tracy Nelson, some great songs by "Where Is He Now?" RP St. John (I like "Marvel Group," about the Stan Lee-era Marvel comics characters), and excellent playing by all."
Underrecognized gem
Craig Weatherby | Waltham, MA USA | 08/09/2005
(4 out of 5 stars)
"While the best tracks do appear on the "Best of Tracy Nelson and MotherEarth" CD, it is great, as another reviewer said, to have the whole enchilada. Great songs, arrangements, playing, singing....a joy to have it back."
Why isn't this album universally known?
MightyFavog | 01/19/2009
(5 out of 5 stars)
"For some reason, this album just never got the airplay and distribution it deserved. Everyone was listing to Janis Joplin, yet nobody in my high school had heard of Mother Earth...This was (finally) handed to me in 1973, and it blew my socks off.
Tracy Nelson really belts out those songs. The others sing and play their hearts out. Others have written superb notes on the individually musicians; I won't take up space duplicating their effort.
One note: both the LP and CD sound are a tad lacking, but (speaking as a semi serious audiophile jerk) with music like this, who cares?
"
Living With the Animals Here On Mother Earth
Gregor von Kallahann | 09/14/2008
(5 out of 5 stars)
"I remember reading about the band Mother Earth and their incredible singer Tracy Nelson in '68 in the old HIT PARADER magazine. In those days, ROLLING STONE had yet to hit the magazine racks in my smallish home town in Maine, and CRAWDADDY might very occasionally show up in some tobacco shop or somewhere off the beaten track, but Jim Delahant's HIT PARADER was just about the only intelligent music rag that I could find month after month.
And they were saying that this chick, Tracy Nelson, was BETTER than Janis Joplin, Grace Slick or any other female rock singer of the era (not that there really WERE all that many, but they were emerging around then--and of course, for many fans it was tantamount to sacrelege to say that ANYBODY was better than Janis).
So I got ahold of the band's first record LIVING WITH THE ANIMALS and truly did fall in love with Tracy Nelson's singing. It had the control and subtlety that the others (whom I also loved) lacked. This was a young but very disciplined singer, one whose roots went deep and whose future looked very bright.
And I loved the band just as much. Like most SF bands of the era, the "chick singer," no matter how stellar, was not the sole focus of the group. In fact, the spotlight opening and closing tracks of LWTA were not Tracy Nelson tunes, but were penned by Texas born hippie balladeer, RP St. John (who also palled around with Joplin and wrote "Bye Bye Baby" for her and Big Brother). The trade off worked well, since the two singers' diverse styles--while night and day in so many ways--complemented each other beautifully. Tracy's blues and gospel flavored numbers were what justified the band's appropriation of the Memphis Slim classic number (included here as track 2) at their band name, but St. John's quirky, ironic, and just a tad off-the-wall numbers were what rooted them firmly in 1968--and 1968 San Fran at that.
I was shouting cries of "Hallelujah" when the independent label Wounded Bird released the bulk of the early Tracy Nelson and Mother Earth catalogue a few years back. I had never expected them to be released on CD at all. Warners had culled the Tracy tracks from the band's various releases and released a BEST OF TRACY NELSON/MOTHER EARTH album in the early '90s. At the time that seemed like a mini-miracle, but it actually was something of a mis-representation of the band as a whole (well, at least the very earliest version of the band). I mean it when I say there is no better singer on the planet than Tracy Nelson--but I missed R.P.'s tracks from this record, to say nothing of the multiple singers from their second release MAKE A JOYFUL NOISE.
So God bless Wounded Bird for re-releasing pretty much the entire Mercury/Warners catalogue--with most of the original artwork in tact. The flow of LIVING WITH THE ANIMALS is just about AS important as the great songs themselves. Tracy has a number of show stoppers here, including such classics as "Mother Earth"--with guest artist Michael Bloomfield on guitar--"Cry On" and the original recording of her signature song "Down So Low." Those tunes are so overpowering that you may not fully appreciate the shorter, more understated "It Won't Be Long" or "Good Night Nelda Grebe..." at first hearing. But in fact, all of Tracy's numbers on this records can rightfully be considered classics. And framed as they are by the charmingly eccentric--and downright poetic--musings of RP St. John, well, there's no way you can go wrong with this classic release."
