Three Free Amigos is a beautiful place keeper in Anders Osborne’s career, a songwriter’s digest that follows two exhaustive, sprawling magnum opus albums, American Patchwork and Black Eye Galaxy. Those records were milestones on the human highway Osborne has traveled in recent years as he crawls his way back home from a suffocating life season of addiction. It’s a tribute to his recovery that this pause is reflected in a modest, well-crafted album rather than a hastily thrown together live set or collection of outtakes. [iframe src=”https://embed.spotify.com/?uri=spotify:album:2YlU3Mmu8wfCb0P4RHV8YV” width=”300″ height=”380″ frameborder=”0″ allowtransparency=”true” class=”spotify-right”]Buy on AmazonBuy on iTunes
This was cut last fall at Oak Street Recording and kept to a six-song EP featuring a new version of one of Osborne’s better songs, “It’s Gonna Be OK,” a sentiment we can all use daily. I’ve seen this referred to as an “acoustic” album but that’s true only in the MTV Unplugged sense; it’s not as frenzied as the hard rock tracks on his recent recordings but is of a piece with the softer, reflective songs on those collections and the Americana style that characterized his previous work. The title track is a happy wanderer tune of the Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young variety and a great setting for the only real jamming that takes place on this 25:10 minutes of music. This is sure to become a staple of his live shows down the road. Very nice work from an artist who continues to grow before our eyes.