Hmm, I think I can take the Bombmeister's playlist for his Wednesday show
(just how much airtime do you take up in a week, Don?) as evidence that
bluegrass is not a roots music <g>.
On the other hand, his Swingin' Doors playlist has lots of interesting
stuff, like...
>Jeff White - Old Plank Road
I think I've mentioned Jeff's forthcoming here a couple of times, but
release is getting pretty close. It's a dandy, which is why I jumped at the
chance to write the notes; I thought the first one (from which this cut
comes) was good, but this one's a whole lot better.
>Red Allen - Beautiful Blue Eyes
I'm betting this is off of one of several IMG comps. It's one of 4 cuts Red
did for a special EP made by Starday for the 1963 DJ convention, with Don
Reno on the banjo, Frank Wakefield on mandolin and Chubby Wise on fiddle
(nope, dunno the bass player). Red is *really* woefully under-represented
on CD; aside from the Starday cuts that turn up on the comps, he has a solid
appearance on David Grisman's Home Is Where The Heart Is, doing a couple of
cuts with his son Harley and the late Porter Church on banjo, and one on a
Bill Emerson album whose title I don't recall (and which I don't have,
dadgummit). The Bluegrass Reunion album (on Acoustic Disc), which he
appears on throughout, is certainly worth having, but it's not top shelf,
IMO, suffering from two Jerry Garcia lead vocals (sorry, Jerry doesn't cut
it here), and kind of so-so banjo from Herb Pedersen (who does, though, do
an excellent job singing).
Anyhow, these serious defect is set to be remedied, though only in part, by
a Red Allen set that is supposed to be released this year that includes the
two albums he did for County (with bandmembers that included a young Grisman
and Richard Greene), a *great* album he cut for Melodeon (which I believe
included the first recording of One Riot One Ranger's mega-hit, "Hello City
Limits"), and sundry other stuff done for the Rebel label. Keep an eye out
for news on this.
>Jimmy Wakely - Walkin' The Sidewalks Of Shame
Jimmy Wakely is the man. Aside from the Capitol collection this cut comes
from, there's a fairly new and frustratingly uninformative comp out on the
Simitar label that's well worth having.
Jon Weisberger Kenton County, KY [EMAIL PROTECTED]
http://home.fuse.net/jonweisberger/
