Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating 8.5/10

Any anniversary is worth celebrating, in a world where from one day to the next the transient nature of life sees people move on, move away, forget a project, forget the things they once loved, to even get to a year in the same place, offering the same vision and clarity is to be celebrated hard. When that vision has been illuminating minds for fifty years, when it has been thrilling, tantalising and making hearts break and fall in love for that amount of time, then celebration is not enough, it is a memorial, a commemoration of all that is good in the world.

Bob Cheevers has been inspiring audiences for half a century and yet his voice still has the clarity of a man who understands fully the difference between worth and price, and it is with immense satisfaction to not only know that his time creating music is being honoured with a five disc box set appropriately called Fifty Years but one in which it is possible to hear Time doff its hat and applaud the sincerity of the music at hand.

To still be able to produce such startling, beautiful and defining music after so long at the helm is a testament to the man and his musical appreciation, his skill, honed at the microphone, broadened performing on so many stages, is what comes across fully in the music on offer and whilst it should be suggested to take a couple of days out of life to completely put yourself into the man’s boots, each song captured is a priceless piece of history that cannot be shaken but one that can stir the heart.

In songs such as My Guitar, The Man in the Moon, and My Heart, the haunting nature of Texas is an Only Child, Popsicle Man, The Unknown Soldier and Island In Paradise, the scene is set for very great things, for the heart to captured and placed in quarantine for it to have as much time as it needs to appreciate the talent that lives and breathes in Bob Cheevers.

Fifty Years, some of us should be so lucky to achieve that in any profession but for Bob Cheevers it is fitting and complete to have such an arsenal of musical knowledge and great songs at his disposal; a tremendous album, one of positivity and purity, a wealth of music to be enamoured by.

Ian D. Hall