Like its predecessor, the
Chad Mitchell Trio's
Reunion, Part 2 is drawn from a concert given by
Chad Mitchell,
Mike Kobluk, and
Joe Frazier at the Spirit Square Center for the Arts in Charlotte, N.C., in 1987, their first appearance together since the 1960s. The earlier album,
Mighty Day: The Chad Mitchell Trio Reunion, contained performances of most of the trio's better-known songs, but there are a few gems left over, notably a cover of
Tom Paxton's "The Marvelous Toy" (a chart hit for the group) and a rendition of the Depression-era standard "Brother, Can You Spare a Dime?," plus a couple of nice surprises: "Barry's Boys," the trio's parody of 1964 right-wing presidential candidate Barry Goldwater, gets updated into a parody of 1987 right-wing President Ronald Reagan in "Ronnie's Boys"; and
Bruce Cockburn's "Nicaragua" makes an appropriate and timely (for 1987) addition to the trio's repertoire. As on
Mighty Day, former group member
John Denver makes a cameo appearance. But here, he gives a political speech and sings a recently written political song, "Let Us Begin (What Are We Making Weapons For)," which has the odd effect of exiling the trio from the last ten minutes of its own album.
–
William Ruhlmann, Rovi