Tag Archives: Bluegrass

Bobby Osborne: Memories

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Legendary bluegrass vocalist and mandolinist celebrates 60 years

Vocalist and mandolin player Bobby Osborne has been a legend in the bluegrass world for over sixty years, starting with his radio debut in 1948. With his sights set initially on becoming a country singer, he learned guitar, became a trailblazing mandolin player, and with his soaring tenor voice, a beloved bluegrass singer. Together with his brother Sonny he pioneered changes, such as adding pedal steel and drums to their band’s lineup, that many purists decried. No doubt the drums included on most of these tracks will engender similar criticism, but to fixate on the drumming is to miss the beauty of the band’s playing and the vitality of the singing.

Following Sonny’s retirement in 2006, Bobby Osborne formed the Rocky Top X-Press. On this fourth outing, the focus is split between Osborne’s vocals and the band’s instrumental talents. Winningly, the band spends time down-tempo, giving thoughtful performances on instrumentals like “Man from Rosine,” and welcoming guest performances from David Grisman and Ronnie McCoury. There is some requisite hot-picking, as Mike Toppins’ fingers fly across his banjo strings and Glen Duncan’s bow turns into a blur on the group’s cover of “Rocky Top,” but even here it’s Osborne’s high, keening vocal that gives the arrangement its identity.

Several songs turn on nostalgic thoughts, with Osborne singing behind Russell Moore’s lead on “Mountain Fever” and taking the lead on Glen Duncan’s ballad, “Bring Back Yesterday.” Even the broken hearts are reminiscences of those that got away; Osborne duets with Audie Blaylock on “With a Pain in My Heart” and harmonizes beautifully with Patty Loveless on the album’s title track. At 79, Osborne’s voice is still powerful and moving, whether singing a ballad like Glen Duncan’s “Bring Back Yesterday” or hanging it all out with a yodel for his signature “Ruby.” Entering his seventh decade as a musician, Bobby Osborne’s still singing with authority and leading a crackerjack band. [©2011 hyperbolium dot com]

Bobby Osborne’s Home Page
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Sarah Jarosz: The New 45

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Interesting new original tune and a Bill Withers cover

With this two-song release, the nineteen-year-old singer/songwriter/string player bridges her acoustic bluegrass to a more progressive sound, and demonstrates a keen understanding of modern music marketing. While artists still issue albums, there’s a greater need to keep a constant flow of music in listener’s ears, and reverting to the time-honored pre-album single – but in digital form – is a savvy move. This “digital 45” includes a new original song, “My Muse,” that will appear on her second album, and a cover of Bill Withers’ “Grandma’s Hands” as a “B-side.” The latter is not slated for the album, giving it the sheen of a collector’s item. Jarosz continues to astound with the fluidity of her singing, and on “My Muse” she offers a piece whose chorus evokes Rubber Soul-era Beatles, but whose sonics are more modern in their echo-y richness. Her studio recording of “Grandma’s Hands” is restrained in comparison to her gospel-tinged concert readings, and the bass-fiddle-mandolin arrangement hasn’t the bottom-end soul and beat that so effectively underlined Bill Withers’ original. In addition to her concert schedule (which is necessarily lightened by her college studies), this is a great way to keep her music on fans’ radar. [©2010 hyperbolium dot com]

Sarah Jarosz’ Home Page

Various Artists: Look to the Light – Songs of Faith from the Pen of Rick Lang

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Contemporary bluegrass and gospel songs of faith

Rick Lang is a contemporary songwriter whose works have been recorded by a who’s-who of modern bluegrass players, including the Lonesome River Band, IIIrd Tyme Out and Southern Rail. Mandolinist Jesse Brock and guitarist John Miller have teamed with a collection of crack singers and acoustic instrumentalists to record fourteen of Lang’s tunes. The lead vocalists include Russell Moore, Junior Sisk, Jeff Parker, and Dale Perry, with Brock, Miller and the supremely talented Dale Ann Bradley adding harmonies. Lang writes songs of praise that are filled with musical spirit, which makes them enjoyable by bluegrass fans of all religious and irreligious stripes. The arrangements focus on the lyrics and vocals, but the players show their wares in support and in short instrumental breaks; Roger Williams’ dobro is particularly compelling. This is a low-key, at times an almost meditative album whose religious conviction is laid into both the words and beautiful music. [©2010 hyperbolium dot com]

Rick Lang’s Home Page

Steve Gulley and Tim Stafford: Dogwood Winter

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Bluegrass, folk and acoustic country from songwriting pair

Grasstowne’s (and Mountain Heart’s) Steve Gulley and Blue Highway’s Tim Stafford have turned their songwriting partnership into a pleasing musical collaboration. Though songs have been their calling card, their bluegrass-inspired duet singing on the opening “Why Ask Why?” is a welcome revelation. Adam Steffey (mandolin), Ron Stewart (banjo), Justin Moses (dobro) and Dale Ann Bradley (harmony vocals) add zest to Gulley and Stafford’s guitars, but the music on this album is a lot broader than bluegrass. “Nebraska Sky” opens like a James Taylor soft pop tune before the close harmonies bring it back to the mountains; “Torches” maintains the Taylor vibe throughout. There are high-balling banjo romps, acoustic folk harmonies, sad country songs, and fiddle-led waltzes that sing of hard times and wistful memories, difficult relationships, and poignant stories of those on the margins. The closing “Angel on its Way,” sung solo by Gulley to Stafford’s acoustic guitar really shows off the craft of their songwriting. It’s always a treat to hear songwriters perform their own songs, especially when they’re as talented performers as Gulley and Stafford. [©2010 hyperbolium dot com]

Ola Belle Reed: Rising Sun Melodies

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Pioneering Appalachian singer, songwriter and string player

Ola Belle Reed is destined for repeated rediscovery. An Appalachian singer steeped in the mix of folk styles born of America’s melting pot, she was discovered at her family’s country music park, by 1950s folk revivalists. By that time she’d already been playing and singing for several decades, and her national emergence at the 1969 Smithsonian Festival of American Folklife showcased a talent that was pure in its folk roots and mature in its expression. Her appearances resulted in recordings for the Folkways label and a 1976 audio documentary, My Epitaph. Her songs have been recorded by Marty Stuart, Del McCoury, the Louvin Brothers and Hot Rize, but it’s her own versions that best capture the folk tradition that she so fully embodied. Belle looked, dressed, talked and performed as a folk musician – part of a folk community rather than a commercially-bred folk scene.

Reed was bred among musicians: her father was a fiddler, one uncle ran a singing school and another taught her to play clawhammer banjo. Her father, uncle and aunt started a band in the early decades of the twentieth century, and Ola Belle and her brother Alex played in the North Carolina Ridge Runners before forming their own band in the late 1940s. Her husband Bud was also a musician, and his family combined with Reed’s to open the New River Ranch country music park. The park hosted most of Nashville’s major stars and many of Wheeling’s best acts, with Ola and Alex’s New River Boys and Girls serving as the opening act and house band. Oddly, at the crucial moment when Gei Zantzinger arrived to record the group, Alex chose not to participate – leaving the recording to be billed under Ola Belle’s name.

This set of nineteen tracks collects eleven from her previously released Folkways LPs and adds eight previously unreleased cuts from 1972 and 1976 archival recordings. The titles include Belle’s best-known originals, including the oft-covered “I’ve Endured” and “High on the Mountain,” as well as terrific renditions of fiddle tunes, mountain songs and nineteenth century standards that include “Bonaparte’s Retreat,” “Foggy Mountain Top,” and “Look Down That Lonesome Road.” Her son David Reed provides harmony on Ralph Stanley’s gospel “I Am the Man, Thomas,” but its her solo vocals that show how thoroughly she could imbue a lyric with aching loneliness. As she says in introducing “Undone in Sorrow,” “When I do a song that is as old as the hills and has the oldest flavor, as Betsy said, ‘If it’s a sad sad sad mournful song, when I get done with it, it’ll be pitiful’.”

Reed’s strength as a musician was matched by her humanitarianism as a Christian, both of which you can hear in the life force with which she leads her group through the disc-closing (and previously unreleased) rendition of “Here Comes the Light.” As she’s quoted saying in the 40-page booklet: “That’s what I am saying, that you cannot separate your music from your lifestyle. You cannot separate your lifestyle, your religion, and your politics from your music, it’s part of life.” Jeff Place’s extensive liner notes do a terrific job of telling Reed’s story through quotes, interviews and archival photos. If you haven’t already been clued in to Reed’s original recordings, this is an exemplary way to make their acquaintance. [©2010 hyperbolium dot com]

Ola Belle Music Festival

Roland White: I Wasn’t Born to Rock ‘n’ Roll

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Long-lost string-band music from 1976

By the time mandolinist and vocalist Roland White cut this album in 1976, he was a well-seasoned bluegrass performer. His family band, the Country Boys had morphed into the Kentucky Colonels, released several albums and toured the U.S. When the Colonels broke up in 1965, White’s brother Clarence became a sought-after session guitarist, a member of Nashville West and, in 1968, a member of the Byrds. During the same period Roland joined Bill Monroe’s Blue Grass Boys, and later, Lester Flatt’s Nashville Grass. The brothers had a short-lived reunion in a reformed Kentucky Colonels, but when a drunk driver struck and killed Clarence, Roland was once again on his own. White joined Country Gazette in 1974, staying for 13 years and recording this album with their instrumental and vocal backing. The progressive elements the band brought to their group albums are left behind as these songs are drawn from classics by Flatt & Scruggs, Jimmie Davis, and Bill Monroe, highlighted by the seven-minute, six-song medley, “Marathon.” White proves himself a compelling vocalist, adding bluesy slides to his solo phrases and fitting tightly into the backing harmonies. The set’s lone original is the White brothers’ “Powder Creek,” joining two other instrumentals on the original album. This first-ever CD reissue, with one bonus track (“She is Her Own Special Baby”), is remastered from the original tapes, and sparkles with the energy the players brought from the stage into the studio. [©2010 hyperbolium dot com]

Roland White’s Home Page
See Roland, Eric and Clarence White’s childhood home movies

Reno & Smiley: Bluegrass 1963

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Archival CD release from Reno & Smiley’s early-60s television show

These eighteen live performances are drawn from Reno & Smiley’s program, Top o’ the Morning, which aired daily on Roanoke, Virginia’s WDBJ-TV. Recorded in 1963, only a year before Red Smiley’s initial retirement, the titles highlight many of the duo’s classics (including a terrific version of “I Wouldn’t Change You If I could”), well-selected standards (including a fiercely picked rendition of “Panhandle Country”), and guest spots by Ralph and Carter Stanley. The former joins Don Reno for a banjo duet on “Home Sweet Home,” and all four stars sing and play together on “Over in the Gloryland.” Reno & Smiley are backed throughout by their long-time accompanists, the Tennessee Cut-Ups, and though the mono recordings are missing some high-end on the first eight tracks and a few at disc’s end, the quality and joy of the singing and playing (especially Don Reno’s banjo picking and Mac Magaha’s fiddling) make these well worth hearing. The introductory chatter is edited to a minimum, so this set is primarily music; it would be interesting to hear a full program, if producer Ronnie Reno has any among his archives. [©2010 hyperbolium dot com]

Audie Blaylock and Redline: Cryin’ Heart Blues

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Traditional bluegrass keyed by warm lead and harmony vocals

Guitarist Audie Blaylock and his hot-shot bluegrass group return with their second release in as many years, and it’s another fine album of feeling vocals, tight-harmonies and finely crafted musicianship. The quintet’s been reduced to a quartet with the departure of mandolinist Jason Johnson, but their sound doesn’t suffer, as fiddler Patrick McAvinue performs double duty. The group’s instrumental talents live up to their hot-picking name, but it’s the more reserved playing that’s their real strength. McAvinue’s work on the lovelorn and lonesome “All I Can Do is Pretend” and Evan Ward’s laconic banjo picking on “Talk to Your Heart” are graceful additions to the songs rather than flashy look-at-me solos, and group’s vocal blends impress with their subtle textures.

A couple of new titles mix with selections from Bill Monroe, Jimmy Martin, the Stanley Brothers and others, and the thematic focus, as Johnnie & Jack’s title tune suggests, are troubles of the heart. There’s bitterness born of loneliness in “Matches,” betrayal in “Stay Away From Me” and omnipresent dark clouds on “Troubles Round My Door.” The album’s remedies include facing one’s demons (“Can’t Keep on Runnin’”), a healthy dose of prayer (“Pray the Clouds Away”), and devotion to faith ( “He is Near”). The closing instrumental gives the players a chance to hot things up, but it’s the emphasis the group puts on singing that gives the album its warmth. [©2010 hyperbolium dot com]

Audie Blaylock’s Home Page

The Infamous Stringdusters: Things That Fly

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Forceful contemporary acoustic and bluegrass sounds

There’s a power to this sextet’s progressive acoustic and bluegrass sounds that leans into the listener like a poke in the chest. The instruments are mostly the standard acoustic assortment, but the verve with which they’re picked, and the group’s punchy vocal harmonies are heavier than one might expect from a contemporary acoustic outfit. As on their previous self-titled album, the band writes many of their own songs, generally avoids the standard bluegrass canon and stretch their genre with an acoustic reworking of U2’s “In God’s Country.” The latter amplifies the song’s force in group harmonies and a propulsive arrangement, but weans it from the original’s anthemic emotion. The group’s originals weave folk and country sounds with progressive arrangements and hot-picked strings. There are bluegrass intervals in their harmonies, but otherwise their melodies are quite progressive. The instrumental “Magic #9” suggests both – a melody with downtown jazz complications picked on acoustic string instruments from the hills.

The group features three lead vocalists, giving their sound more variety than a bluegrass band with a designated singer. They also welcome Dierks Bentley for a duet cover of Jody Stecher’s humorous encounter with a panhandler, “17 Cents.” Their new songs contemplate friends and family who are gone but not missing, previous generations whose impact reverberates through the family tree and friends who remain fresh in one’s memory. The group’s won bluegrass accolades (including several IBMA awards) and releases their CDs on vaunted Sugar Hill label, but there’s more here than a recitation of form. The massed voices at the end of “Masquerade” momentarily bring to mind 10cc’s “I’m Not in Love,” and guitarist Andy Falco pulls things into new directions with the addition of organ and piano. Perhaps most importantly, the group treats studio recording as its own music-making opportunity – rather than a way to document the band’s live sound. The vitality of live performance remains, but augmented by studio touches. [©2010 hyperbolium dot com]

MP3 | All the Same
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Twilite Broadcasters: Evening Shade

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Joyous pre-Bluegrass brotherly harmonizing

This North Carolina duo, Mark Jackson and Adam Tanner, sing the sort of two-part pre-Bluegrass harmonies that were popularized by the Osborne, Delmore, Monroe, Louvin and Everly brothers. The duo sings both happy and sad songs, but always with a sweetness that expresses the sheer joy of harmonizing. Accompanied by guitar (Jackson), mandolin and fiddle (both Tanner), the arrangements are simpler than a string band’s, with the guitar keeping time and the mandolin vamping before stepping out for relaxed solos. The instruments provide a platform for the voices, rather than racing to the front of the stage.

The duo performs songs written or made famous by the Delmores (“Southern Moon”), Everlys (“Long Time Gone”), Jim & Jesse (“Stormy Horizons”), and others, like Buck Owens & Don Rich (“Don’t Let Her Know”) who latched onto close harmonies that weren’t always high and lonesome. The waltzing invitation of “What Would You Give in Exchange For Your Soul” is sung in both harmony and counterpoint, and the oft-recorded “Midnight Special” sounds fresh and enthusiastic. Tanner’s mandolin steps forward for the instrumental “Ragtime Annie,” and he saws heavily on the fiddle for a cover of Doug Kershaw’s “Louisiana Man” and the celtic-influenced “Salt River.”

The public domain selections include a full-throated take on “More Pretty Girls Than One” (popularized and often credited to Woody Guthrie) on which the slow tempo draws out the chorus harmonies and begs the listener to find a place to sing along. Jackson and Tanner are fine instrumentalists, and winningly, they don’t hot-pick here with the fervor of bluegrass. Instead, they provide themselves tasteful support that leaves the spotlight on their voices and songs, and gives the record a warm, invitingly down-home feel. [©2010 hyperbolium dot com]

The Twilite Broadcasters’ MySpace Page