Bluegrass

Gary, the new expanded version of Will The Circle Be Unbroken might be a good starting point for further exploration of bluegrass.

Also, Rounder (the label) has some excellent and reasonably priced bluegrass compilations.

 

Well, there's always Bill Monroe. Pretty good box set on MCA - Music of Bill Monroe 1936-1994

 

Hi Gary,

Unfortunately, bluegrass never got as much attention as most other music styles. Many musicians chose to leap from bluegrass to other frontiers in order to increase their exposure and (possibly) bank accounts. I think this is a great shame b/c some of the most technically proficient musicians in the world are bluegrass players. The margin for acceptable error is real small (basically zero).

Some of my favorite young bluegrass musicians who moved on:

Jerry Garcia (a great banjo talent)
Clarence White (Kentucky Colonels!!)

Sorry, back to the question. I think some of the best material and certainly best sonics you will find for bluegrass are on David Grisman's Acoustic Disc label. Great stuff! David Grisman has had some great bands with Tony Rice on guitar. Old & In The Way may have been the greatest grouping of bluegrass musicians after 1970 (David Grisman, Jerry Garcia, Peter Rowan, Vassar Clements, John Kahn).

-Jeffrey

 

Gary, in terms of recent releases Dolly Parton's (!) last two discs The Grass Is Blue &
Little Sparrow feature many of today's top bluegrass players and are really well done both musically and sonically. I never was a fan of Dolly Parton until I heard these two albums.

 

Hey Gary,
Bear Family put out 3 Box Sets on Flatt & Scruggs! Excellent Sound quality! Unfortunately very expensive, but definitely worth every penny. A fun CD is Earl Scruggs His Family And Friends on Collectibles, right now on sale at the Collectibles Website. www.oldies.com The CD was a TV Special from PBS over 30 years Ago! with Guests, Bob Dylan,Doc Watson, The Byrds, Joan Baez and others.

 

Ricky Skaggs and Kentucky Thunder's "Bluegrass Rules!" CD on Rounder is killer. It's always in my car, wakes me right up during long road trips.

Also, I highly reccomend classic Country Gentlemen recordings from around the early 60's, late 50's. "Urban Bluegrass" I've heard it called. Great stuff! Smithsonian has reissued many of these.

Dan C

 

F.Y.I.- I bought a Columbia "2 eye" pressing of Flatt & Scruggs "20 Greatest" two album set and the sound is fantastic.

 

The Country Gentlemen are great, also the Seldom Scene. Jerry Douglas and Tut Taylor are two great dobro players, look for them and you won't go wrong.

The Bela Fleck Bluegrass Sessions discs are great, and David Grisman's albums are uniformly excellent. He has a great trio of discs called "Tone Pems" that are far less energetic than the usual bluegrass sound but feature some excellent playing.

The surprise hit soundtrack album "O Brother Where Art Thou" is very, very good, as is the album made from the concerts by that personnel, "Down From The Mountain."

 

Some of my favorites are:

Allison Brown Quartet
Allison Krause and Union Station
John Hartford
Del Mcoury Band (they did an album with Steve Earle, The Mountain, which is fabulous)
Stanley Brothers (Jim Lauderdale and Ralph Stanley have colaborated on two recent releases)
Tim O'Brian
Darol Anger and Mike Marshall
Hazel Dickens
Patty Loveless

- Whew! thats all I can think of at the moment

 

Fiddle Fever on Flying Fish. great music great sound

 

Hi,

An other one for the mix... Mr. Bill Keith (an amazing banjo player).

-Jeffrey