Bruce Hornsby

Bruce Hornsby

Intersections [1985-2005] (RCA/Legacy)

Twenty years after the surprising success of his first album, The Way It Is, Bruce Hornsby gets the deluxe treatment. Not that Intersections is your ordinary career retrospective. Perhaps the 4-CD/1-DVD set should be subtitled For the Fans. On the audio side, 26 of 53 tracks are previously unreleased live cuts, and anyone looking for straight radio hits like "The Way It Is," "The Valley Road," or "Mandolin Wind" will be disappointed, because they aren't here. Instead, Hornsby shows the breadth of his songwriting talent, which allows adapting such tunes to different styles depending on the setting. To prove it, "The Valley Road," pops up four distinct times. He starts off the "Top 90 Time" disc, which features his best known songs, eight of which are newly released live performances from 2004 and 2005, some like "Jacob's Ladder" (associated with Huey Lewis) and "The Age of Innocence" (Don Henley) intriguingly deconstructed. The second disc displays the Virginia-born Hornsby's ability to play alone and with others; it's filled with spacey solo piano, as well as collaborations with an amazing array of musicians, from Branford Marsalis and Ornette Coleman to Elton John and the Grateful Dead. The contrast in styles among the special guests is dizzying, what with Austin's Shawn Colvin, Pat Metheny, the New York Philharmonic Orchestra, Bonnie Raitt, and Ricky Skaggs. The other two discs, "By Request (Favorites and Best Songs)," are a mixed bag that lean too heavily on his latter, and decidedly weaker, material. The DVD is the greatest hits collection of the set. With only two of its 22 tracks previously available in the format, it features nine original promotional videos along with rarities by Chaka Kahn, Roger Waters (a potent "Comfortably Numb"), Bonnie Raitt, and even "The Star Spangled Banner" from the 1997 World Series.