The Arista Columbia Recordings 1980-1991

For a few years in the early '80s, Willie Nile had "next big thing" written all over him; at a time when the music biz was moving from its search for the "new Dylan" to the "new Springsteen," Nile had the look and the smart wordplay of the former along with the rocker's instincts and blazing passion of the latter, and he seemed destined for the big time. Nile made three albums before (two for Arista, one for Columbia) before the major-league recording industry decided they didn't know what to do with him after all, which seems to have been a matter of poor marketing rather than the quality of his work. Nile's three major-label albums have all been out of print since the late '90s, but the British Acadia label has given them a new lease on life with The Arista Columbia Recordings 1980-1991, a two-CD set that features the 32 songs from 1980's Willie Nile, 1981's Golden Down, and 1991's Places I Have Never Been, all in their original sequence. Nile's self-titled debut features 11 great songs, including the scrappy "Old Men Sleeping on the Bowery," the razor-sharp lover's kiss-off "They'll Build a Statue of You," the charging rocker "She's So Cold," and the anthemic "I'm Not Waiting," and the performances by Nile and his band are tight and emphatic. However, the production by Roy Halee is just a bit too lean for the tunes to kick in as hard as they should. Golden Down suffers from the opposite problem; Nile co-produced the set with Thom Panunzio, and they seem to have been reaching for a bigger and more epic sound than the debut. However, they swung a little too far in this direction, and "Poor Boy" and the title cut sound like unintended parodies of Bruce Springsteen's widescreen heartland rockers. Too bad, since most of the songs are top-shelf, especially the switchblade-sharp "Grenade" and the keening "I Like the Way" (though "Les Champs Elysees" is definitely filler). Places I Have Never Been is perhaps Nile's strongest album: the quality of the songs is up to the level of his debut; the production by Nile, T-Bone Wolk, and William Whitman gives the music a certain touch of polish while still letting the songs rock out as needed; and the musicians (including Roger McGuinn, Richard Thompson, Robbie McIntosh, and Terre and Suzzy Roche) deliver the goods with aplomb. While no new liner notes have been included and the artwork is skimpy, this package includes all the original credits for the three albums, and the sound quality is fine. While Willie Nile falls a few notches short of "neglected genius," he was certainly one of the better rock songwriters to emerge as the 1970s edged into the 1980s, and his work deserved a wider audience than it received. This set makes three solid albums available again for interested parties and is well worth picking up either for the uninitiated or for fans wanting to replace their vinyl copies of the first two albums (though 2006's Streets of New York is also worth a listen and shows the man has thankfully not given up on playing smart rock & roll direct from the heart). ~ Mark Deming