War
(Rhino)
War is a band not nearly as famous as it should be. Certainly there are those standout cuts, especially "The Cisco Kid" and "Low Rider," but let's face it: We're most likely to hear those today in a movie during the scene where the stereotyped bandanna-wearing Latino kid cruises the streets in his chopped El Camino looking for some good times with the local ladies.
But War was so much more than that. Like Dylan's famous backing band that later became known simply as The Band, War stepped out from behind frontman Eric Burdon's shadow in 1971 and stood on their own with a debut album that displayed all the elements that would carry them into the pantheon of greatness. The individual members mattered-perhaps most notably the funk-ass beats of drummer Harold Brown and the surprisingly fitting harmonica of Danish transplant Lee Oskar-but they never mattered quite so much as did the whole unit: a churning mass of multi-ethnic craziness that defined the 1970s urban landscape like no other group ever would. Six black dudes and a white Danish kid harmonica player, no less. It's like the imagination of Thomas Pynchon formed a funk band.
Rhino has collected the original eight albums by War in a boxed set, from 1971's debut through 1994's Peace Sign, and it's a collection that every music fan should own, listen to, and grapple with. Their masterpiece, 1972's The World Is a Ghetto, seems particularly apropos today, with a crashing economy and the end of eight years of political madness riding out through the ten minute title cut. Back in '72 it was Dick Nixon; War reminds us that 2008 has not been so different.
My one and only comment is that I might have enjoyed a bit more deluxe packaging for the individual CDs for while Rhino does give us Barry Alfonso's informative liner notes, the CD inserts feel cheaply made and lack any kind of photos or ephemera. This is the kind of material that one expects from a package like this and its absence is something of a disappointment. What's not disappointing, though, is the music, all eight CDs of it. High points, low points, missteps and giant steps-it's all here and it's all worth the ride.
Standout Tracks: "The World Is a Ghetto," "The Cisco Kid" CHRISTIAN KIEFER
