Album of the Day

High Tension Wires, by Steve Morse (1989): What makes an album a "solo" album? If you're just one of many guys in a band and you make an album under your own name, that surely counts. But what about someone like Steve Morse? He was the driving force behind The Dregs, as the primary song writer. After they split up, rather than forge on under just his own name, he recorded two albums with "The Steve Morse Band," which, obviously, he led. Nonetheless, for this disc he drops the "Band" and says, in the liner notes "[t]his is my first actual solo album." Regardless, it's my favorite of his, full of lots of influences and Steve's tasty guitar playing. So maybe it doesn't matter at all what it's called?

For what it's worth, a true solo album to me means the guy with the name has "final say," as Bill Bruford put it in the notes for Feels Good to Me. It's all about where the buck stops.