Editor Reviews:

Description:
1. Who
2. Bandages & Scars
3. 6 String Belief
4. Atmosphere
5. Gramaphone
6. Back into Your World
7. Joe Citizen Blues
8. Medicine Hat
9. Ipecac
10. Damn Shame
11. Feel Free
12. Barstow
13. Loose String
14. Choas Streams
15. Live Free
16. Clear Day Thunder
17. Picking Up The Signal
18. Jet pilot
19. Endless War
20. Route
21. Straightface
22. Caryatid Easy
23. Driving The View
24. Medication
25. Drown
26. Afterglow 61
27. World Waits for You
28. Tear Stained Eye
29. Windfall
30. Armagideon Time
31. Chickamauga

Amazon.com:
Recorded in Asheville, North Carolina in 2005, Six String Belief celebrates Jay Farrar's entire career, making it the undisputed motherlode for the singer-songwriter's fans. Featuring a more than generous 31 songs, the two-hour concert obviously focuses on his current band, Son Volt (including every tune from the 2005 CD Okemah and the Melody of Riot, their first release since the late '90s), but Farrar's previous group, Uncle Tupelo, and his solo work are represented as well. Some call it alt-country, others prefer Americana; any way you slice it, Farrar and his spirited band are in good form here, evoking such influences as Tom Petty, Bruce Springsteen, Neil Young and Crazy Horse, R.E.M., and the Sweetheart of the Rodeo-era Byrds. Yet despite the career overview aspect, there simply isn't a lot of variety. Farrar does all the singing, with occasional harmony contributions from bass player Andrew Duplantis, and while what one critic described as his "perfectly ramshackle" voice is distinctive in a Michael Stipe kind of way, it's limited in range and monotonous (not to mention fairly often out of tune). Same goes for the band's driving, chordal rock sound; one welcomes the acoustic interludes, especially the trio of "World Waits for You," "Tear Stained Eye," and "Windfall" that comes near the end. It would also have been nice if Farrar had uttered more than a word or two between songs (bonus material includes an OK-but-hardly-scintillating interview). Of course, these complaints will sound churlish to the faithful, who have every reason to rejoice over this good-sounding, fine-looking, bargain-priced release. --Sam Graham

Rating : - Neil Young's Heir Apparent
From the opening "Who" to the closing and rousing "Chickamauga," Jay Farrar and Son Volt are as potent and pwerful as Neil Young with Crazy Horse at their very best. With disarming directness and simplicity, Farrar crafts subtle and sophisticated tales like Young with a view from the Midwest, much as Young's vision is infused part Canadian Prairie and part western dessert. Farrar has a unique voice that passionately deals with alienation, the loss of love, the political illwill and its deleterious effects on the common man in ways that only Neil and his cohorts ever dealt with as compellingly.
The show is a small theatre, and thus, there is an intimacy to the recording and the video that is always lost in bigger venues. Unlike Young, Farrar seems more in control of where and how his music is presented, where there are times throughout Neil's career you just wonder.....
Anyway, short of "Anodyne," there is almost any song you could want from his catalogue. And the band is spot on with every lick, fill, exploration in which they all engage. As wryly self-effacing as Neil, Farrar early on advises the crowd they are filming, so if they don't get it right, they'll have to do it all over.
"6 String Belief" is a great title for the DVD: certainly Farrar's love for his craft pours out from his Gibson acoustic and Gretsch black with a crunch and conviction almost any artist would give their eye-teeth for. The 5.1 mix makes all this wonderful music even more "present" wherever you are. This is absolutely brilliant in every respect and there is an intriguing interview with Farrar as bonus material. But he says it all with his music.
Perhaps one day, Farrar and Young will collaborate. Farrar is Young's heir in every best sense: the writing, the vocals, the playing - there is such an unaffected honesty to it all, that even more than thinking about Young working with him, you hope Tweedy, Heidorn and Farrar would convene Uncle Tupelo just one more time. It would break your heart if they never did...