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Digitally remastered by Bob Ludwig. 2020 Wicked Cool/Ume reissue of Little Steven's third solo album, 1987's Freedom No Compromise, which leaned heavily to dance-rock, verging in places on world music. Bruce Springsteen and Rubén Blades join Van Zandt on lead vocals with "Native American" and "Bitter Fruit," respectively. This deluxe reissue includes a bonus DVD of Live at The Ritz 1987.
Filmed live at New York City's famed rock club The Ritz in 1987, the concert video, which originally aired live on Japanese TV, was mastered from the original video tapes never seen by the public while the audio was restored and mastered by Bob Ludwig, resulting in the best version anyone has ever seen or heard. Long traded amongst fans as a low generation VHS bootleg sourced from the in house screens, the performance shows Van Zandt coming into his own as a true frontman as he leads a killer Disciples of Soul lineup featuring Pat Thrall on guitar, T.M. Stevens on bass, Leslie Ming on drums and Mark Alexander on keys.
"This was the only show that was filmed of that tour, because it was live on Japanese TV, so we're lucky somebody caught it and now all these years later we can share this high-quality version," says Van Zandt. "We happened to have a particularly good show that night. I kept changing direction in the '80s, but that show with that band was my rock peak."
Van Zandt continues: "'Trail [of Broken Treaties]'" was one of the two songs dedicated to Native Americans on my Freedom No Compromise album, the other being 'Leonard Peltier,' an American Indian Movement activist that was tragically, wrongfully imprisoned. I'm currently on my fifth President trying to get him out. 'Trail' referred specifically to the 'Trail of Tears' forced relocation of tens of thousands of Native Americans from the Southeast to across the Mississippi River following the Indian Removal Act of 1830, and symbolically to the hundreds of broken treaties with Native America."
Disc 1 - Freedom No Compromise (CD):
1. Freedom
2. Trail of Broken Treaties
3. Pretoria
4. Bitter Fruit
5. No More Party's
6. Can't You Feel the Fire
7. Native American
8. Sanctuary
Disc 2 - Live at the Ritz, New York - 1987 (DVD)
Freedom (Live)
Sanctuary (Live)
Under the Gun (Live)
Los Desaparecidos (Live)
I Am a Patriot (Live)
Pretoria (Live)
Fear (Live)
Trail of Broken Treaties (Live)
Bitter Fruit (Live)
Checkpoint Charlie (Live)
Vote! (Live)
No More Party's (Live)
Undefeated (Live)
Native American featuring Bruce Springsteen (Live)
Sun City featuring Bruce Springsteen (Live)