Rick Nelson - Rick Nelson In Concert - The Troubadour, 1969 (2011)

The Garden Party is usually regarded as Rick Nelson's comeback album, but two years before its release, this live album peaked just below the Top 50, hardly a blockbuster but a lot better than anything he'd issued in three years, and his first charting album in all of that time. The tracks are a mix of the more enduring of his classic hits and some of the newer songs he was adding to his repertory, including a trio of Bob Dylan compositions and Tim Hardin's "Red Balloon." The performance is excellent, Nelson reveling in this newly cultivated audience and sound, which was as up-to-date in 1969 as "I'm Walkin'" had been in 1957, but the real beauty of this record is the debut of the Stone Canyon Band -- Randy Meisner on bass and backing vocals, Allen Kemp on lead guitar, Patrick Shanahan at the drums, and Tom Brumley on steel guitar.