Hackett remasters

[EVP]

I know these have been out for a couple few years now but I finally broke down
and ordered his first 3 albums on Amazon for a good price.  Voyage of the Acolyte
is on back order but Please Don't Touch and Spectral Mornings showed up today.

I'm really liking the diversity of PDT and I think this is a brilliant album. I completely forgot
Steve Walsh sang on Narnia. Richie Havens is a nice surprise as well.  Too bad Walsh
never did a full album as his voice worked well in Steve's music IMHO.  I heard the clips
online and as soon as I heard Carry on up the Vicarage I knew i had to have this cd.

Yet another discovery of 'new' old music by a favorite artist.

The other two albums I already had but felt it was time to update for better sound quality.
I'll eventually get his other albums but not sure where to start. Defector perhaps?

[Dodie]

I'm sure my ideas about Steve Hackett's albums are far from the last word, but there are a few uneven albums containing some essential and wonderful things, and one or two albums that are, for me, duds. But the ones apart from the three you mention that I rank pretty highly are:

Guitar Noir
To Watch the Storms
Defector

But I reckon a lot of the things I enjoy best are on the live albums:

Live Archive 03
Live Archive Nearfest
The Tokyo Tapes
There Are Many Sides To The Night
Timelapse

I'd be content to legally download a few tracks from all the others, but especially "The Gulf" (Feedback 86), "Don't Fall Away From Me" (The Unauthorised Biography), "Deja vu" (Genesis Revisited), "In Memoriam" (Darktown), "The Air Conditioned Nightmare" and "Overnight Sleeper" (Cured), and "Group Therapy" (Highly Strung).

Much as though I love Steve's acoustic playing, the studio "classical" albums don't do much for me (but the live concerts of "classical" stuff are great).

But I wonder what other Frostie's think?

Cheers

David

[D S]

Yes, I'm a big SH fan although I'm the first to admit that his albums can be rather patchy.  Please Don't Touch, Spectral Mornings and Defector contain some real classics but strangely I find his most consistently good album is perhaps one of his most 'commercial' ones, Cured.

I agree the live albums are generally very good, the Tokyo Tapes being a particularly good one due to the strong line up of both musos (SH / John Wetton / Ian McDonald / Chester Thompson / Julian Colbeck) and songs (Genesis, King Crimson and [avert your eyes, Tom] Asia covers along with SH songs).

Read a review once saying the SH had possibly developed (progressed?!) the most musically and taken more chances than his former band mates and there is something in that.

[catherine]

I saw SH when he played in Cambridge a couple of years back. I was very impressed. I think Voyage of the Acolyte is my favourite, closely followed by Spectral Mornings.

[sawtooth]

I've been meaning to replace my old Hackett vinyl albums for years so now seems the best time.
Must say, in the area of melodic guitar instrumentals, the track Spectral Mornings is the absolute number 1 in my book.

[EVP]

I have the Genesis Re-visited video on VHS(or is it The Tokyo Tapes?) It's interesting
to hear the other musicians interpretations of all the songs played. I would have to
agree that Steve probably has been the most diverse of any of the ex-gen guys
except for maybe Gabriel(IMHO).

I'll probably dive into a couple of the acoustic albums just to have around when
I need to 'shift gears' so to speak. But I do need to catch up all around and I'm
interested in his more recent rock albums.