AMG Review of Live in Concert

William Ruhlmann
All Music Guide

The contrasting styles of British guitarist John Renbourn and American guitarist Stefan Grossman are on display on this joint live album. The structure of the show finds the two performing two tunes together at the outset, "Looper's Corner" and an arrangement of Charles Mingus' "The Shoes of the Fisherman's Wife Are Some Jive Ass Slippers." Grossman then plays a solo set that takes the audience to the intermission and the LP to the end of the first side. He mixes folk-blues with a series of rags and proves a crowd-pleaser, joking with his listeners. Renbourn comes on for his solo set at the start of the second side, providing somewhat calmer pleasures (the greatest of which is a treatment of Booker T. Jones' "Sweet Potato") before being joined by Grossman for another Mingus composition, "Goodbye Pork Pie Hat." In the duo, Grossman remains the spokesman, but Renbourn more than holds his own in the twin guitar parts, particularly in the nine-minute "Spirit Levels." Each guitarist takes only one vocal, so this is a night of fancy fingerpicking in styles ranging from Delta blues to English folk.