Long considered a substandard effort due to its oddly brief running time (it's just barely half an hour long) and scattershot feel (like its sister album,
Cimarron
, also released in 1981, it primarily consists of outtakes from earlier albums),
Evangeline
is not as bad as its detractors claim. It's true that the album has more than a couple of clunkers; the synthesizers and California
rock
guitars of
Rodney Crowell
's
"I Don't Have to Crawl"
and
"Ashes By Now"
do neither singer nor songs any favors, the version of
John Fogerty
"Bad Moon Rising"
adds nothing new to the song, and
James Taylor
"Millworker"
simply isn't very good. On the other hand, two recordings from the then-unreleased
Trio
sessions with
Dolly Parton
Linda Ronstadt
, a perky
"Mr. Sandman"
that was a minor
pop
hit and a reworking of
Robbie Robertson
's haunting
"Evangeline"
featuring some outstanding harmonies from
Parton
, are outstanding, as are
"Spanish Johnny,"
a
Springsteen-ish
ballad
sung with
Waylon Jennings
, and a dazzling version of the
standard
"How High the Moon"
that uses the same pre-
arrangement style as
"Mr. Sandman."
So,
is certainly uneven, but it's not at all worthless. ~ Stewart Mason