The Big City Cat is back with his 13th studio work, The Place and the Time.  This album features a collection of 12 new songs (one a cover of “Coo Coo Bird,” the other a cover of “Building Me a Fire”) from the songwriter who has given us the exemplary Alive on Arrival (1978), and the wonderful “Romeo’s Tune” from his second Nemperor release, Jackrabbit Slim.  Since then, Steve Forbert, who was hailed as a singer-songwriter in the Dylan vein way back some 30 years ago, has produced a fine set catalogue of albums and tunes, some well-received and others less so.

On The Place and The Time, he begins with “Blackbird Tune,” a softly sung composition of observation and freedom.  He opens up musically on the following “Sing It Again, My Friend” that longingly desires a backward path to great youthful times.  He explores a wide angle of timely experiences including a humorous take on technologies that would “put yourself in jail” in his hit single, “Stolen Identity.”  Funny with his “hope I meet myself someday” and “what have I done, where have I been?” lines, the song simply is great fun to listen to.  Forbert gets bluesy with a wonderful “Write Me a Raincheck.” 

The cover tune, “Building Me a Fire” is an excellent rendition of a borrowed song from Devin Greenwood, a Philadelphia songwriter.  The other cover track, “The Coo Coo Bird,” a standard covered by many, is given the Forbert treatment to grand effect, and will sit wonderfully with its many renditions.

Forbert’s voice seems a bit strained on the songs of this album but it in no way diminishes the quality of the songs here nor does it undermine his style.  In fact, it adds to his charm as a singer of observation with his usual folky charm.  His love of freedom is still a theme within his songs and that provides more than a moment of nostalgia for those of us who, like Forbert, miss our days of unmetered living.

The Place and The Time is an album for Forbert fans, but it is also an album of wonderful tracks (ok, nothing will edge out Alive on Arrival and Jackrabbit Slim but The Time and Place doesn’t attempt that) that can be enjoyed by Folk music lovers.  The Place and The Time is Steve Forbert’s current state of mind that just happens to mirror many of our own.  The songs are well constructed and are a pleasure to listen to.