I just finished listening to this for the first time, and I decided to check out Amazon to see what people were saying about it. I'm not surprized to see that reviews are going from outstanding to lukewarm. If you're new to Steve's music, my advice is: don't start here. I've been a fan from the beginning, and I agree with the reviewers of most of his records here on Amazon, the guy is really an underappreciated talent. The better way to find that out is on his studio albums. I rated it with a 3 because (1) Amazon required me to give a rating, and (2) I feel that how much you'll appreciate it really will depend on how familiar you are with his music. As the liner notes say; "So here we were- singing for a small crowd that stood so far away we couldn't see their their faces clearly, so-not worrying about it-playing pretty much for ourselves, ...(we) decided to get a tape machine rolling." For guys like me that have continued to listen to his albums off and on for years this is a nice treat. It's almost like catching him live, except you can be Bar-B-Qing on the porch while you,listen. For someone not familiar with his music or looking for the production quality of his studio stuff, this would be a disappointment. Note: the last two songs are not listed on the CD, but are listed here at Amazon, except the next to the last track is "If You're Waiting On Me", not "I'm Backing Up, Boys".
