Silent Letter

Editorial Reviews
Album Description
Reissue of 1979 album with the original artwork. Produced by George Martin, this also featured the Tower Of Power hornsection helping out. This is the worldwide CD debut of 'Silent Letter' --the only America album that had not ever been on CD! 11 tracks. The silent letter the title refers tois 'H', which every one of their titled LPs' began with prior to this record! 1998 One Way Records release.

Tracks:

Only Game in Town
All Around
Tall Treasures
1960
And Forever
Foolin'
All Night
No Fortune
All My Life
One Morning
High in the City
Survival
Might Be Your Love
Catch That Train
You Could've Been the One
I Don't Believe in Miracles
I Do Believe in You
Hangover
Right Back to Me
Valentine
One in a Million

Album Description

Digitally remastered two-fer featuring two albums from America, their first albums as a duo after the departure of Dan Peek. 1979's Silent Letter was the last that George Martin produced for them, while 1980's Alibi showed the band edging towards a slick adult contemporary sound. 22 tracks total. Comes housed in a slipcase with new liner notes. BGO. 2006.

Album Details

2006 Digitally Remastered Edition that Combines the Contents of Two Original LPs on to a Single Compact Disc. These Are the First Two Albums the Rejuvenated Duo of Dewey Bunnell and Gerry Beckley Recorded for Capitol Records after Many Years on Warner Brothers (Dan Peek Left to Become a Christian Recording Artist).

Customer Reviews:

Very good for America fans.......2007-06-10

It's nice having these lesser known America albums available on CD, my only beef is it doesn't include (I'm sure for time) the Alibi track "Coastline", one of my favorites from the LP which I still fortunately own. Having said that, it is a good package for America fans.

A nice package.......2007-02-17

This is a nice collection of two of America's lesser known albums, 1979's "Silent Letter" and 1980's "Alibi". Neither album was a hit in the US but they are not bad.

"Silent Letter" was America's last collaboration with legendary Beatles producer George Martin. It produced a few minor hits: "Only Game in Town", "All My Life", and "All Around."

While "Alibi" went vertually unnoticed in the US, it was a big hit overseas. "Survival" was a number 1 hit in Europe and it contains one of my favorite America rockers "Valentine".

This is not a bad collection to have if you do not already own the individual CDs.

America cd.......2007-02-12

Great to have both of these albums on one cd,especially since no one seemed to have "Alibi" available since vinyl or cassette.

Average customer rating:

A Timely Performance
Outstanding; a soon to be classic
Uninspired tedium
Holocaust Cantata: A Five Star Work of Art
An excerpt from my liner notes...

Holocaust Cantata

Manufacturer: Albany Records
ProductGroup: Music
Binding: Audio CD

General | Opera & Vocal | Styles | Music

General | Classical | Styles | Music
Similar Items:

Composers of the Holocaust: Ghetto Songs & Instrumental Works
MUSIC FROM THE HOLOCAUST
Rossini: Petite Messe solennelle
Music in the Holocaust: Confronting Life in the Nazi Ghettos and Camps (Oxford Historical Monographs)
Forbidden Music: Music from Theresienstadt

ASIN: B000031VRF
Release Date: 1999-11-23

Tracks:

The Prisoner Rises
Singing Saved My Life
Song Of The Polish Prisoners
The Execution Of The Twelve
In Buchenwald
A State Of Seperation
The Train
Singing From Birth To Death
The Striped Ones
There's No Life Like Life At Auschwitz
Tempo di Tango
Letter To Mom
Song Of Days Now Gone
Passacaille For Cello And Piano
Even When God Is Silent
A Child's Journey: An Accidental Meeting
A Child's Journey: I Once Had A Friend
A Child's Journey: There Are No Stars In The Sky
Is Not A Flower A Mystery?
We Remember Them

Album Description

The Holocaust Cantata uses the words and music of actual concentration camp inmates to create a wholly original and powerful work. Using material found within the archives of the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum, Donald McCullough's Holocaust Cantata traverses one of the bleakest episodes in human history. Yet the piece also evokes a sense of music's life-affirming power, even in the face of absolute despair, to express what words alone cannot.

McCullough discovered the material within the vast Aleksander Kulisiewicz collection in the museum's archives. Kulisiewicz himself had performed as a kind of camp troubador during his own incarceration at Sachsenhausen, and, after the war, spent several years interviewing fellow survivors about music in the camps, gathering together the scattered remnants of this music.

As McCullough painstakingly sifted through this material-much of which was uncatalogued-the arresting melodies and compelling testimonies that make up the Holocaust Cantata gradually began to emerge. "I wanted the Cantata to speak with a sense of immediacy," says McCullough, explaining his decision to set the choral texts and spoken testimonies in English, and his hope is that the piece may "transform statistics into people in the minds of the Cantata's listeners, and perhaps be a part of making it more difficult for such a horror ever to occur again." The Washington Post, reviewing the world premiere in March 1998, called it "an experience that should linger long in the audience's memory and should be regularly revived."

Customer Reviews:

A Timely Performance.......2001-11-18

In August of 2001, the choral group I sing with began practicing this work for performance on Veteran's Day Nov 11. We rehearse on Tuesday nights. As we all know on Tuesday Sept 11 the world change forever. Of course rehearsal was cancelled. When we returned the next Tuesday - a piece that we all thought was so powerful became more so. The first song contains the words "the fires burning, the iron furnace..". The paralells to what happened were evident. As one of the reviewers noted " so this can never happen again", well it has, only much faster, in one single day. Hate caused both events. People need to hear this CD and really listen to the words of the songs and the narration, and maybe we can prevent this from happening again and again. A MUST HEAR FOR ALL THE PEOPLE OF THE WORLD. The music and lyics came from the hearts and the lives of the prisoners.This is a beautiful tribute to them.

Outstanding; a soon to be classic.......2000-05-04

Beautifully written and performed! This recording and an encore live performance of this inspiring work were downright demanded by audiences after the premiere. I rate it a "strong buy."

Uninspired tedium.......2000-04-28

McCullough has appropriated other people's material, "choralized" it, and appears to be attempting to capitalize on a wave of political correctness to buy himself a Grammy nomination. There are a few nice tunes scattered throughout this tedious piece, but overall the interpretation is lifeless, unimaginative, and uninspired, almost clinical. Here's hoping that victims of the Shoah can find a more suitable expression of their music than McCullough has tried to give them. They deserve better than this.

Holocaust Cantata: A Five Star Work of Art.......2000-01-07

For me, the Holocaust Cantata is one of those artistic representations of that cataclysmic period that evokes an even stronger picture of the horrors of the Holocaust then do many pictures in newspapers and museum exhibits. I think this is because the Cantata is poetry-it's message sounds a spare and powerful truth. I am grateful to Mr. McCullough for his vision and energy in bringing about the Holocaust Cantata.

An excerpt from my liner notes..........1999-11-25

I was present at the March 1998 Kennedy Center premiere of this extraordinary work, and subsequently wrote the liner notes for the CD. Because of the unusual nature of this recording-which I think captures the haunting beauty of this work-I believe that others would be interested in reading an excerpt from my notes on the music. Please note that I am posting this material with the permission of the composer, Donald McCullough:

Notes on the Music

It is well-known that during the Holocaust inmates wrote music while incarcerated in concentration camps. Much of it has since been recorded. At Theresienstadt, for instance-the infamous "Paradise Ghetto"-the Nazis organized an orchestra made up of young musicians who had studied under such luminaries as Leos Janacek and Arnold Schoenberg. Most of these musicians, among them such promising students as Gideon Klein and Viktor Ullmann, perished during the Holocaust, leaving behind but a few pieces, composed under duress and co-opted by the Nazis for their own propaganda purposes. What might they have eventually accomplished had they survived? Such classical music-beautiful as it is-was the product of formally trained musicians. What about the music of the common man-music embraced by the whole community and passed secretly by aural transmission-music that carried with it powerful words revealing different aspects of camp life, or expressing the inmates' innermost feelings, of mourning, or resistance, or patriotism? Was there other Holocaust music, akin to the spirituals that sprang from slavery in America, that spoke with the same startling immediacy to express the agony of the victims of the Nazi regime?...

McCullough's [quest to answer this question] began with a call to Bret Werb, musicologist at the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum, who revealed the existence of the Aleksander Kulisiewicz collection in the museum archives. Kulisiewicz had traveled about Europe during the postwar period collecting and preserving what he could of the music that had emerged from the Holocaust concentration camps, but little was known about the music itself.

McCullough's first task, then, was to immerse himself in the collection, playing through the hundreds of tunes. He was encouraged to find that they contained some compelling melodies, and for the first time he began to wonder whether a choral cantata-perhaps reflecting the role of music in the camps or evoking the daily lives of these people-might emerge from the material. But he still had no idea what lay within the accompanying text.

At some point, someone had added a rough, English-language index to the collection, but the materials themselves were mostly in Polish. Marcin Zmudzki, a young Pole, was engaged to sift through the mountain of texts. McCullough told the translator that he was interested in anything that had to do with camp life, especially as it related to music. As he recalls, "It was my good fortune that not only was Marcin an excellent translator, but also he had a sense for poetry and thus grasped, very quickly, the type of material I was seeking."

In addition to music, Kulisiewicz also collected interviews, articles, and letters that had anything to do with camp life. With this wealth of material, McCullough decided to place between each musical arrangement readings that also spoke of life in the camps. After considering and rejecting literally hundreds of documents, he finally decided that he had what he needed from the archives. But in a sense, the real work was just beginning. "Because I wanted the Cantata to speak with a sense of immediacy," says McCullough, "I thought it should be sung in English. But before I could arrange a single note of it, I needed to have singable translations. Here I employed the talents of lyricist Denny Clark, who at first worked with Marcin, getting a word by word translation. Knowing which words appear on which notes is important in keeping the overall impact of the song." A trained singer himself, Clark was able to make transliterations to ensure that the best vowels for singing fell on the proper notes, all while remaining faithful to the original text. It was an immensely complicated task....

A few words about the structure of the Cantata. As you listen you should not look for a plot, as such. Because each song and reading represents a different person, a different place, and a different time in the Holocaust experience, you should be wary about viewing the entire piece as a streaming narrative. Nonetheless, certain common truths will begin to emerge, and no doubt others will come to you with each successive hearing. Among these is the certainty that these are nakedly honest responses to the most unthinkable of acts. Sometimes the responses are jarring; who could find humor amid such horror? And yet humor-albeit dark in nature-undoubtedly exists within this work. Nevertheless the inmates' responses never sink to the level of triteness. For them, music functioned as something much more than just a light in the darkness; its very existence was a form of spiritual resistance in an environment where such resistance risked instant extermination.

Tracks:

Only Game In Town
All Around
Tall Treasure
1960
And Forever
Follin'
All Night
No Fortune
All My Life
One Morning
High In The City

Album Description

Reissue of 1979 album with the original artwork. Produced by George Martin, this also featured the Tower Of Power hornsection helping out. This is the worldwide CD debut of 'Silent Letter' --the only America album that had not ever been on CD! 11 tracks. The silent letter the title refers tois 'H', which every one of their titled LPs' began with prior to this record! 1998 One Way Records release.

Customer Reviews:

America change direction again.......2007-03-20

America were a huge folk-rock act in the early seventies. In the late seventies they tried to change their sound and lost a lot of what made them special in the firts place. After the album prior to this one, Harbor, group member Dan Peek left.

This album is less acoustic folk than the previous album but more pointedly it is less an attempt to mould their sound with progressive rock like they had been doing and more an attempt to blend in with soul/adult contemporary. The production here really puts the bass in the foreground, to great effect.

There is some good music on here, notably Dewey Bunnells tracks "Tall Treasures" and "One Time". His mystery-soaked "All night" is also another highlight but it's really dark lyric about mental illness doesn't make for easy listening! However, the album relies too heavily on themes such as pop-stars' high life and middling pop music to really warrant a high rating. There are also some forays into their regrettable attempts at trying to sound eerie.

This is a very well produced album. However, genrally the material doesn't reach a great standard. Also, they really started to lose their identity here. They are no longer hippie folk-rockers but more pop stars. That's probably the great diasppointment with the album for me. This is where they started relying on outside material, also. They were on the verge of a short-ived revival but at the moment they remained rather in obscurity.

One of America s' best ever!!.......2005-02-08

This cd is not among AMERICA s' most popular albums. In fact, it was generaly ignored by fans and radio in general, but it contains among the best songs the band ever recorded. Beginning with the first one "The Only Game in Town" (a great rocker opening song, and following with "All around", "all my life" and "1960"), you have 4 songs that should have been singles and smash hits. Who is to blame? maybe the executive s' record company.... maybe it was the fans. Sometimes we use to forget about our old favorite artists thinkin that they already passed their prime. Well, this is not the case, as well as other later day America s' cds, especially ALIBY. AMERICA was a band with 3 great singer/song writers and still they create greate music. Check out Dan Peek and Gerry Beckley solo cds as well!

Needs Dan Peek.......2004-06-17

The album misses Dan Peek and his 12 string guitar.

Unrecognized good album.......2003-12-24

This is one of those unrecognized good albums from America.I like it because all the songs are of life in general. "All my Life" is a wonderful balled for two people in love. All other tracks have a warm melody and have been well written."One Morning" stands out as well as "1960".Very seldom do you find an album with all good tunes."And Forever" has a sax part which you really don't hear from America which rocks!.Even though it was released 24 years ago it still sounds fresh to me today.

All AMERICA fans should own SILENT LETTER.......2002-03-08

SILENT LETTER is easily the best late 70's AMERICA album.THE ONLY GAME IN TOWN leads off the album with one of AMERICA'S best rockers ever.In a "sane" world,ALL AROUND would have been a huge smash.I rank ALL AROUND as one of AMERICA's best songs ever.Gerry Beckley's 1960 is truly an amazing piece of songwriting,while Bunnell's AND FOREVER is smooth as silk.Other highlights are ALL MY LIFE and HIGH IN THE CITY.No AMERICA fan will be disappointed with SILENT LETTER.

Average customer rating:

A bit uneven

Silent Letter
America
Manufacturer: Capitol/ EMI
ProductGroup: Music
Binding: Audio CD

General | Contemporary Folk | Folk | Styles | Music

General | Pop | Styles | Music

Singer-Songwriters | Pop | Styles | Music

Soft Rock | Pop | Styles | Music

Pop Rock | Pop | Styles | Music

General | Oldies | Pop | Styles | Music

General | Adult Contemporary | Pop | Styles | Music

Folk Rock | Rock | Styles | Music
ASIN: B0006OFLPO
Release Date: 2006-11-10

Tracks:

Only Game in Town
All Around
Tall Treasures
1960
And Forever
Foolin'
All Night
No Fortune
All My Life
One Morning
High in the City

Customer Reviews:

A bit uneven.......2007-02-17

This is not a bad CD, but it is not one of America's better efforts. The production is excellent but the songs are a bit uneven. Released in 1979, this was America's first studio album as a duo and last collaboration with legendary Beatles producer George Martin. It failed to produce any hits and the album did not crack the top 100 of Billboard's album charts. It does have some good songs such as "Only Game In Town", "All My Life", "One Morning", "And Forever", "Foolin" and "All Around". The Tower of Power horn section plays on "High in the City".

Average customer rating:

Plum Pudding

Manufacturer: Asv Living Era
ProductGroup: Music
Binding: Audio CD

General | Classical | Styles | Music

British Folk | Traditional British & Celtic Folk | Folk | Styles | Music

A Cappella | Folk | Styles | Music

General | Christian & Gospel | Styles | Music

General | Opera & Vocal | Styles | Music

Anthems | Vocal Non-Opera | Opera & Vocal | Styles | Music

Choruses | Vocal Non-Opera | Opera & Vocal | Styles | Music

Motets | Vocal Non-Opera | Opera & Vocal | Styles | Music

Noels | Vocal Non-Opera | Opera & Vocal | Styles | Music

General Christmas | Holiday | Miscellaneous | Styles | Music

General Christmas | Holiday Music | Special Features | Music
ASIN: B0000CEONL
Release Date: 2003-11-11

Tracks:

Wassail Song
December
O Magnum Mysterium
This Day Christmas Was Born
God's Speech
Lullay, Lulla
Jolly Wat The Shepherd
I Sing Of A Maiden
Virgin Mary's Slumber-Song
The Three Kings
The Journey Of The Magi
Twelfth Night
Christmas In Seville
Virgen Sancta
Esta Noche
Memories Of Christmas
The Holly And The Ivy
Christmas Decorations
Deck The Hall
The Twelve Days Of Christmas
The Twelve Days Of Christmas
Christmas Truce
Singing In The Streets
Silent Night

Average customer rating:

An Artist's Artist
Luscious and deeply moving

She Walks in Beauty

Manufacturer: Parnassus
ProductGroup: Music
Binding: Audio CD

General | Classical | Styles | Music

General | Chamber Music | Classical | Styles | Music

General | Opera & Vocal | Styles | Music
ASIN: B00000I54A
Release Date: 1999-02-15

Tracks:

Suite for Soprano and Flute (Luening, 1936)
Images of Man (Starer, 1994)
Letter to a Composer (Starer, 1995)

Customer Reviews:

An Artist's Artist.......2006-03-18

Danielle Woerner has long been prized on the classical music scene for the exquisite intelligence of her singing and the distinctive beauty of her voice. Her range is and has been astonishing--from opera to art song--and in this recording one can her that sound and intimate sensibility which has earned her such a splendid name. Buy it!

Luscious and deeply moving.......2000-12-29

Danielle Woerner's voice is so rich and mellow, you can get lost in it. I was not familiar with this repertoire, and found Luening's setting of Emily Dickinson to be marvelous--sometimes serious, sometimes playful, always true to the deep emotions. I also liked the setting of William Blake's "Ah, Sun-flower", which Luening composed especially for this singer. I found myself listening over and over to the poems of Gail Godwin as set by her partner and collaborator, Robert Starer. The compositions are moving and complex, and Woerner makes excellent musical choices for presenting them in a way that the audience can truly feel. Highly recommended.

Average customer rating:

America change direction again
One of America s' best ever!!
Needs Dan Peek
Unrecognized good album
All AMERICA fans should own SILENT LETTER

Silent Letter
America
Manufacturer: EMI Int'l
ProductGroup: Music
Binding: Audio CD

General | Contemporary Folk | Folk | Styles | Music

General | Pop | Styles | Music

Singer-Songwriters | Pop | Styles | Music

Soft Rock | Pop | Styles | Music

Pop Rock | Pop | Styles | Music

General | Oldies | Pop | Styles | Music

General | Adult Contemporary | Pop | Styles | Music

Pop Rock | CD Singles | Pop | Styles | Music

Folk Rock | Rock | Styles | Music

General | Rock | Styles | Music

Album-Oriented Rock (AOR) | Classic Rock | Styles | Music

General | Classic Rock | Styles | Music

Classic Rock | Imports | Stores | Music

Rock | Imports | Stores | Music

Pop | Imports | Stores | Music
Similar Items:

Alibi
Your Move
Perspective
A View From the Ground
Harbor

ASIN: B00002816D
Release Date: 2002-01-01

Tracks:

Only Game in Town
All Around
Tall Treasures
1960
And Forever
Foolin'
All Night
No Fortune
All My Life
One Morning
High in the City

Album Description

HDCD remastered reissue of the light folk-rock act's 1979 album. Digipak. 1999 release.

Customer Reviews:

America change direction again.......2007-03-20

One of America s' best ever!!.......2005-02-08

Needs Dan Peek.......2004-06-17

The album misses Dan Peek and his 12 string guitar.

Unrecognized good album.......2003-12-24

All AMERICA fans should own SILENT LETTER.......2002-03-08

Average customer rating:

Silent Letter
America
Manufacturer: Phantom Sound & Vision
ProductGroup: Music
Binding: Audio CD

General | Folk | Styles | Music

General | Pop | Styles | Music

Soft Rock | Pop | Styles | Music

Pop Rock | Pop | Styles | Music

General | Rock | Styles | Music

General | Miscellaneous | Styles | Music

General | Soundtracks | Styles | Music

Album-Oriented Rock (AOR) | Classic Rock | Styles | Music

General | Classic Rock | Styles | Music
ASIN: B000BRIDMO
Release Date: 2002-01-23

Southwest Chamber Music: Cage, Carter, Harrison, Partch, etc.

Average customer rating:

A must for modern music lovers

Southwest Chamber Music: Cage, Carter, Harrison, Partch, etc.
John Cage , Elliott Carter , Lou Harrison , and William Kraft
Manufacturer: Cambria Records
ProductGroup: Music
Binding: Audio CD

Quintets | Chamber Music | Classical | Styles | Music

General | Chamber Music | Classical | Styles | Music

General | Classical | Styles | Music

General | Opera & Vocal | Styles | Music

Modern & 20th Century | Historical Periods | Opera & Vocal | Styles | Music

Classical | Box Sets | Stores | Music
Similar Items:

Kaikhosru Sorabji: 100 Transcendental Studies, Nos. 1-25

ASIN: B00004ZE27
Release Date: 2000-10-24

Customer Reviews:

A must for modern music lovers.......2000-10-20

A monumental collection of some of the most important chamber works of the late 20th century, impeccably performed and recorded.

Music Review:

Music Review

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