Gary Lucas / Street of Lost Brothers

Sort of an adult follow-up to Gary Lucas's 1998 Jewish-themed album Busy Being Born, "Street of Lost Brothers" continues this great blues-oriented guitarist's obsession with the kaleidoscopic fragments of the Jewish cultural soul. But where "Busy Being Born" concentrated on chuckles and children's music, "Lost Brothers" has a more serious bent. Dig the liturgical symbolism of an album that begins with the hard-bopping electric hurly-burly of "Yigdal" and concludes with "Sh'ma," an eleven-minute electric duet for digitally delayed guitar and keyboards. It's mainly a solo meditation, however, with Lucas rambling with loose, virtuosic hyperactivity between American and European stations on acoustic and electric slide guitars. Other high points include the Leo Kotke-esque "The Opener of the Way," the satirical "Level the Playing Field" (in which he tweaks the technologically dependent), an acoustic version of the Marx Brothers' "I Kill You For Nothing," a wailing, Hendrixian, know-your-enemy version of Wagner's "Ride of the Valkyries," and the obligatory Velvets' cover, "European Son." If anything, Lucas is a little too all-over-the-map. But that's OK. The album's still a memorable visit to old countries galore. B+

Reviewed by Richard Gehr, 7 Jan 2001

Songs

1. Yigdal (trad., arr. Lucas) 3:01
2. The Opener of the Way (Lucas) 2:13
3. That's my life (Lucas) 4:22
4. Mahzel means good luck (Wayne/Beekman) 2:35
5. It's like a wheel (Lucas) 4:47
6. European Son (Reed/Cale/Morrison/Tucker) 3:11
7. I Kill you for nothing--Marx Bros. Medley (Berlin, Kalmar/Ruby) 2:48
8. Ride of the Valkyries (Wagner, arr. Lucas) 4:00
9. Let my people go (trad., arr. Lucas) 3:34
10. Level the playing field (Lucas) 3:00
11. Sh'ma (trad., arr. Lucas/Horn) 10:54
12. The Tel Aviv Ghetto Fighters' song (Frisch/Lucas) 3:55

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