Oh, boy, a chance to talk about one of my favorite girl singers.
> Hey folks, I just saw Rhonda Vincent and the Rage with Ron Spears, Ron
> Stewart, Steve Sutton and I forget the bass player.
That's Randy Barnes, from down around London, KY. Ronnie Stewart isn't a
regular member of the band, or at least wasn't last time I knew (2 weeks ago
or so); he's been working for Lynn Morris for a while, playing mostly banjo.
Talented guy...
> I love Rhonda's voice and how she sings with Ron is killer!! History
> please?!? I have two of her CD's, Yesterday and Today and The Sally
> Mountain Show, but I would like more of her progressive stuff.
The notes to Yesterday and Today give a history of sorts, at least of the
Sally Mountain Show. I'm assuming the CD reference is to Bound For
Gloryland, their last album for Rebel. She did 3 solo albums for Rebel
before that: New Dreams And Sunshine, A Dream Come True and Timeless And
True Love. They're all outstanding, with a mix of pretty straightforward
bluegrass (though nothing quite as hard-driving as what the Rage is doing
these days) and country stuff, with pedal steel, piano, drums, etc.; if I
had to rank them, I'd say New Dreams and Timeless And True are just a hair
ahead of A Dream Come True, but just by a hair. All of them are well worth
having.
Rhonda also made two contemporary country albums for BNA in 1994 and 1996.
Written In The Stars has some great material and some good pickers, but the
production isn't especially sympathetic, and it drags down the whole thing
(that's not just my opinion, but hers as well). Trouble Free, the second
one, is a dandy album unless you have a real kneejerk reaction to
"Nashvegas." The songs are very strong, the picking is great, and the
singing is just awesome, mostly Rhonda and her brother Darrin, who's in
Ricky Skaggs' band. There's also a real solid duet with Randy Travis, and
Alison Krauss and Dolly Parton both make appearances. For what it's worth,
Trouble Free barely snuck onto the P2 Best Of 1996 list, coming in at #39
(out of 47). It may be hard to find, but it's well worth looking for.
Also worth searching out, in my opinion (though not that of most P2ers who
know the album, I think), is Harley Allen's Another River (Mercury, 1997).
It's another case of bad production sabotaging good material and good
singing, but even more so than with Written In The Stars; nevertheless,
Rhonda sings harmony on just about the whole thing, and she and Harley sound
awfully good together.
Rhonda's got a web page at http://www.nemr.net/~rhondav/ , which she's
pretty good about keeping updated, and Julie Yocum has a page on Rhonda at
http://www.vicon.net/~juliay/Rhonda.html .
Finally, there'll be an article on Rhonda appearing in Bluegrass Unlimited
sometime this summer; I'm turning it in by the end of this month, so look
for it in July or August.
Oh, almost forgot: Ron Spears is a good songwriter from up in Utah who has a
solo album due out any day now on the Copper Creek label; it's pretty good,
and has some great fiddling from Jimmy Van Cleve, who worked briefly with
Rambler's Choice (he's on their debut Rounder CD) and Doyle Lawson before
landing with Mountain Heart. Other guests include Dan Tyminski, Lou Reid
and a bunch more I can't remember at the moment.
Jon Weisberger Kenton County, KY [EMAIL PROTECTED]
http://home.fuse.net/jonweisberger/
