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O Brother, Where Art Thou? Average Customer Review:  Audio CD (05 December, 2000) list price: $13.98 -- our price: $9.99 (price subject to change: see help) US | Canada | United Kingdom | Germany | France Editorial Review The best soundtracks are like movies for the ears, and O Brother, Where Art Thou? joins the likes of Saturday Night Fever and The Harder They Come as cinematic pinnacles of song. The music from the Coen brothers' Depression-era film taps into the source from which the purest strains of country, blues, bluegrass, folk, and gospel music flow. Producer T Bone Burnett enlists the voices of Alison Krauss, Gillian Welch, Emmylou Harris, Ralph Stanley, and kindred spirits for performances of traditional material, in arrangements that are either a cappella or feature bare-bones accompaniment. Highlights range from the aching purity of Krauss's "Down to the River to Pray" to the plainspoken faith of the Whites' "Keep on the Sunny Side" to Stanley's chillingly plaintive "O Death." The album's spiritual centerpiece finds Krauss, Welch, and Harris harmonizing on "Didn't Leave Nobody but the Baby," a gospel lullaby that sounds like a chorus of Appalachian angels. --Don McLeese ... Read more Features Reviews (445)
Asin: B00004XQ83 |
$9.99 |
Deceived and Disappointed
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Appalachian Stomp: Bluegrass Classics Average Customer Review: Audio CD (28 February, 1995) list price: $11.98 -- our price: $10.99 (price subject to change: see help) US | Canada | United Kingdom | Germany | France Editorial Review Appalachian Stomp is an ideal starter disc for those just beginning to explore bluegrass. Mostly this is because its 18 selections are so immediately accessible. The "classics" here, in other words, are usually those infrequent bluegrass cuts to have gained radio recognition beyond a core bluegrass audience. That explains why along with timeless standards such as Flatt & Scruggs' "Foggy Mountain Breakdown" and the Osborne Brothers' "Rocky Top" we also get "Dueling Banjos" from the film Deliverance, a cut that is to classic bluegrass what Walter Murphy is to Beethoven. There are less immediately obvious choices too, though. If your previous exposure to bluegrass doesn't go beyond the Holy Trinity of Bill Monroe, Flatt & Scruggs, and the Stanley Brothers--for example, if you've never heard J.D. Crowe & the New South's stellar example of progressive bluegrass, "Old Home Place," or experienced Jimmy Martin lay down the law on his rousing "You Don't Know My Mind"--then you're in for a high-lonesome surprise. --David Cantwell ... Read more Reviews (10)
"Stomp's" appetizer tray of songs familiar from movies ("Foggy Mountain Breakdown," "Dueling Banjos") and TV ("Dooley," "The Ballad of Jed Clampett") will prime your palate for the main meal, a heaping helping of hard-core high lonesomeness by bluegrass immortals Bill Monroe, Jimmy Martin, The Stanley Brothers, Del McCoury, et al. All the old-timey stuff is plumb dee-licious. Sampling more recent vintages, J.D. Crowe and The New South's cover of The Dillards' "Old Home Place" is pretty good (although the original is superior), but I'm still trying to puzzle out the appeal of bluegrass darling Alison Krauss ("Love You in Vain"). She's cute as a button and sure-fire talented, I'll give her that, and she sounds an awful lot like Dolly Parton. You can work that last observation into a compliment, too, if you'd like. The collection's most (in)famous cut may well be "Dueling Banjos," by Eric Weissberg and Steve Mandell, from the 1972 film "Deliverance." For better or worse, Weissberg and Mandell's calculatedly commercial, radio-friendly guitar vs. banjo arrangement remains the best known one in the song's storied history. The tune has been around, in various forms, since 1889, when it was known as "Banjo Reel." By the 1950s, the tune had metamorphosed into "Feudin' Banjos" (a dual banjo duel between Don Reno and Arthur Smith) and Carl Story's "Mockin' Banjo." An exceptional banjo vs. MANDOLIN version of the song, "Duelin' Banjo," appeared on 1963's "Back Porch Bluegrass," The Dillards' debut album, and later became the basis of a frivolous lawsuit by Arthur Smith, who claimed the band had ripped off "his" song.
Bill Monroe invented bluegrass and his original version of Uncle Pen opens this set. It was later covered by Ricky Skaggs, himself represented by Little cabin home on the hill, a cover of another Bill Monroe song. Bill puts in another appearance here with his version of Blue moon of Kentucky - a song that was covered by Elvis. Foggy mountain breakdown became famous after its use in the 1968 movie, Bonnie and Clyde. Flatt and Scruggs originally recorded it in 1949 and it is that original version that is on this set. The Ballad of Jed Clampett was used as the theme for a TV series, The Beverly hillbillies. When released as a single, it topped the country charts. Rocky top was written by Felice and Boudleaux Bryant, famous as songwriters for the Everly brothers (who eventually recorded the song for their Pass the chicken and listen album). It was a country hit for both Lynn Anderson and the Osborne brothers. Lynn's version was the more successful, but it is the Osborne version that is included here - rightly, as this is a bluegrass collection. Duelling banjos was a huge American pop hit after its use in the movie Deliverance. Other bluegrass classics here include Orange blossom special and Roll in my sweet baby's arms. This is an excellent collection of bluegrass music, ideal as a sampler of what bluegrass used to be like. If you enjoy modern bluegrass and you're not familiar with the oldies, this is the best way to find out. And just to provide you with something familiar, an early Alison Krauss track is included right at the end. ... Read more Asin: B0000033GO |
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Teatro Average Customer Review: Audio CD (01 September, 1998) list price: $13.98 -- our price: $13.98 (price subject to change: see help) US | Canada | United Kingdom | Germany | France Editorial Review The first words from Willie Nelson's lips, "The sun is filledwith ice and gives no warmth at all / the sky was never blue," warn the listener something is happening here. In a converted Mexican movie theater, producer Daniel Lanois surrounds the 65-year-old Nelson withthe most startling and assured musical vision of his career: lush,rippling guitars, and swelling, splashing drum tracks, doubled andtripled over, sometimes in a Latin mood. Lanois allows Nelson freedomto solo in and around his sonic dreamwork, and with the presence oflongtime fellow travelers Mickey Raphael, Emmylou Harris, and sisterBobbie, the record clearly smacks of Nelson's style and lyrical vision. The original material is decades old, but little known, and generallyas haunting as Lanois's arrangements. (Only one song should haveremained in the vaults: the emotionally-curdled "I Just Can't Let YouSay Good-Bye.") So much could have gone wrong on this pairing. It's athrill to hear how much truly goes right. --Roy Francis Kasten ... Read more Reviews (54)
Asin: B00000AFB6 |
$13.98 |
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Keepers Average Customer Review: Audio CD (18 March, 1997) list price: $16.98 -- our price: $16.98 (price subject to change: see help) US | Canada | United Kingdom | Germany | France Editorial Review Guy Clark approaches songwriting the same way he approaches fishing--if what he comes up with is too meager, he throws it back; only the best specimens are considered "keepers." Fifteen of those specimens are featured on Keepers--A Live Recording (Sugar Hill), which was taped at a Nashville club in 1996 on Halloween weekend. Two strong songs are unveiled--"A Little of Both," a bouncy, witty song about avoiding choices, and "Out in the Parking Lot," a slow, poignant look at the action outside a nightclub. These two are joined by 13 old favorites, including those turned into hits by Ricky Skaggs ("Heartbroke"), Jerry Jeff Walker ("L.A. Freeway"), and Johnny Cash ("The Last Gunfighter Ballad"). They're all wonderful songs, but these aren't necessarily the best versions. Clark is a limited singer, but his voice cracks more than usual on several of these live renditions; this version of "She Ain't Goin' Nowhere" is practically unlistenable. Clark did put together a sharp little band for this recording, but if he was going to make a live album, why didn't he deliver some of his long, droll stories rather than these truncated introductions? --Geoffrey Himes ... Read more Features Reviews (8)
The songs are indeed mostly keepers, and the track listing is typical of a Guy Clark set list. It relies heavily on his first album, with half the tracks coming from Old No. 1, and then a song or two from subsequent albums of the late 1970s and early 1980s. Some, like "Heartbroke", are pleasant surprises I've never heard him perform live. I tend to be a little more sanguine about Mr. Clark's post-1975 oeuvre than he seems to be based on his shows and on this CD though - I think he's written a lot of other "keepers" that are conspicuously absent here, some from the "Old Friends", "Boats to Build", and "Dublin Blues" recordings that were released before the concert presented here, and that usually find their way into his sets. It is the performances that disappoint in the end, though, not the choice of songs. The songs are mostly tried and true classics. Guy Clark may or may not tire of singing his first album for 30 years, but he has remarkable stage presence and can play "Desperadoes Waiting for a Train" a thousand times and make me misty every time. In general, though, the vocal performances are better on the original recordings. There is something to be said for re-recording many of these songs using the acoustic sound found on Clark's CDs from "Old Friends" onward, or perhaps in the simple guitar and bass form often used in his performances. The electric instrumentation used on some of his older albums has left some of his best material sounding dated. But here, with Mr. Clark not hitting some of the notes, sometimes off-key, most of the time I felt I'd be better off just pulling out Old No. 1. Or that he'd have been better off re-recording the "keepers" in the studio. There are some fine moments here. Texas Cookin', though recorded perfectly well in the studio, is a fine performance, and I can't help but smile at Mr. Clark, Jr. on bass doing the riff from Hendrix's "Third Stone From the Sun" near the song's end. In short, the songs are keepers but the performances aren't. I have every Guy Clark CD ever made, and I listen to several of them fairly regularly. He is a personal hero in the world of music, and in his corner of this genre, I'll say something he'd disagree with - I think his work far eclipses that of Townes Van Zandt. But this CD has been in my CD player only twice over the years, once when I first bought it and was disappointed, and once today when I was disappointed again. The only good reasons to have this CD are to have a complete Guy Clark collection or to remember this particular concert if you were there.
Asin: B000000EXP |
$16.98 |
Not a keeper
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Waylon Jennings - Greatest Hits [RCA] Average Customer Review: Audio CD (25 October, 1990) list price: $11.98 -- our price: $10.99 (price subject to change: see help) US | Canada | United Kingdom | Germany | France Editorial Review These cuts capture Waylon Jennings in the first flush of his status as a country music superstar, after he gained control of his music in the early '70s. When he began to produce or coproduce his own records, it should be stressed, his music didn't change much--his "Good Hearted Woman" from 1972 (to cite the only pre-Outlaw cut here) is of a piece with later hits like "Honky Tonk Heroes" and "Luckenbach, Texas," from their ramblin'-man themes to Waylon's booming baritone and his music's burping bass lines. What was different was the rock-influenced Outlaw ad copy pushing his career, a rebellious new image he cultivated in country chart-toppers like "Are You Sure Hank Done It This Way" and "Mamas Don't Let Your Babies Grow Up to Be Cowboys," a duet with Willie Nelson. That new frame made all the difference. Jennings had always been great but now, on eight of the nine tracks here, his singles went all the way to the top of the charts. --David Cantwell ... Read more Reviews (19)
Asin: B000002WCG |
$10.99 |
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Poet: A Tribute to Townes Van Zandt Average Customer Review:  Audio CD (11 September, 2001) list price: $19.98 US | Canada | United Kingdom | Germany | France Editorial Review The songs of Townes Van Zandt are destined to be for folk artists whatthe works of Gershwin are to saloon singers. The likes of "Pancho & Lefty," "IfI Needed You," and "To Live's to Fly" are the quintessence of troubadour music,thanks to the somber grace of the late Lone Star legend's language and theengaging simplicity of his melodies. Poet gathers a talented assortmentof Van Zandt contemporaries and apostles to pay tribute to the man by lovinglyreinterpreting his songs.Steve Earle electrifies"Two Girls" whileBilly Joe Shaver tackles"White Freightliner Blues" with similar fervor. "Tower Song," one of the mostpoignant breakup songs ever written, is revived byNanci Griffith, andWillie Nelson provides aconversational version of "Marie." Stalwart fans of these gems will alwaysprefer hearing the originals and live versions performed by their composer, butthey'll find plenty to respect and enjoy in this lovingly compiled salute.--Steven Stolder ... Read more Reviews (20)
Asin: B00005NT3S |
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Down from the Mountain: Live Concert Performances by the Artists & Musicians of O Brother, Where Art Thou? Average Customer Review: Audio CD (24 July, 2001) list price: $13.98 -- our price: $13.98 (price subject to change: see help) US | Canada | United Kingdom | Germany | France Editorial Review Country music reclaimed its traditional soul with the chart-topping triumph of the O Brother, Where Art Thou? soundtrack. This concert sequel, recorded (and filmed) at Nashville's venerable Ryman Auditorium, reunites Emmylou Harris, Gillian Welch, Alison Krauss and Union Station, and other O Brother standouts. With little duplication, the selection extends the movie's revival of acoustic spirituals and Appalachian balladry, though the performances and pacing of the concert aren't quite as consistently compelling as the studio soundtrack. Among the highlights are a pair of originals by Welch and David Rawlings, the bluesy "Dear Someone" and the Everlyesque "I Want to Sing That Rock and Roll." Where O Brother interspersed archival recordings among the contemporary artistry, the concert finds Nashville gospel's Fairfield Four harmonizing on the chain-gang chant of "Po' Lazarus," while the late John Hartford (in one of his final performances) renews the deadpan whimsy of "Big Rock Candy Mountain." --Don McLeese ... Read more Features Reviews (53)
Asin: B00005MJYJ |
$13.98 |
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Dear Companion Average Customer Review: Audio CD (12 December, 1995) list price: $41.98 -- our price: $41.98 (price subject to change: see help) US | Canada | United Kingdom | Germany | France Features Reviews (3)
Columbia signed Hester to be their Joan Baez when Baez was selling so many records and creating such a stir for much smaller competitor Vanguard.However, they don't really sound much alike.If anyone, I'd have to say that Hester sounds like Mary Hopkins ("Those Were the Days" "Turn Turn Turn") with a Texas inflection. I don't think Hester is quite as good as some of the better remembered icons of the Folk era, but for those of us who have listened to the limited cannon of great pre-electric albums way too many times, a new voice on some old and new tunes is a must have. This collection is a typically all-inclusive and meticulous Bear Family compilation. Sixty tunes crammed are onto 2 cds, and the sound quality is very good, so the high price is not entirely unjustified. I thought that the early sessions from 1961 were mostly enjoyable, but at times Hester's voice could be a bit thin. While she let the songs speak for themselves, she didn't always contribute a lot of herself to them.Three and a half stars for these. The middle sessions I adored.Her singing is more mature, both expressively and technically, and there's a wonderful choice of material, much of which has not been done to death by others. Five stars. As for the later pop sessions, let's just say that I'm glad I sprung for a CD player with remote control.Ms. Hester's singing is strong, but it's wasted on inappropriate ditties with horrible dated pop arrangements.One star only.Luckily, this is only about 20% of the collection. The set comes with a nice booklet that has detailed discographical information for the recordings on the disc and an interesting interview with Hester.There are also many gorgeous photos of her, although they're mostly from two sessions so they needn't all have been included.
Asin: B000001B0X |
$41.98 |
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Fellow Workers Average Customer Review:  Audio CD (18 May, 1999) list price: $16.98 -- our price: $16.98 (price subject to change: see help) US | Canada | United Kingdom | Germany | France Editorial Review Following their successful 1996 The Past Didn't Go Anywhere collaboration, anticorporate folksinger Ani DiFranco and vagabond historian-storyteller Utah Phillips gather for another rousing round, though Fellow Workers is a looser, funkier, more acoustic affair than its predecessor. These sessions step lively: the performers burst into seemingly spontaneous applause, cheers, and laughter. Phillips honors civil disobedience, leftist matriarch Mother Jones, and the complex feelings entwined with the promise of a better America. The album's core lies where "The Long Memory"'s soulful organ, bass, and trumpet flow into the powerful "The Silence That Is Me." DiFranco and band provide mellow fingerpicking, shattered beats, hopped-up Wurlitzer, and bass-heavy funk, beautifully complementing Phillips's wry tales and paying homage to the invaluable oral tradition. --Paige La Grone ... Read more Reviews (39)
So what does Ani DiFranco bring?Aurally speaking, a band and production chops.Wisely she keeps that as a backdrop to Utah's words.Except for a few instrumental pieces, the band simply gives Utah a sort of funky, acoustic groove to rap over.This is the capturing of a live show (in New Orleans), and Ani has mostly downplayed studio trickery to keep the intimate, living room feel of the concert.But, of course, what Ani really brings is her Army.And the real purpose is to introduce Ani's followers to a man who is now an elder statesman of Direct Action.I already knew about Utah, and I already knew how to sing "Pie in the Sky."For me, and for fans of Utah, this album works because Utah is up front and in good form; it's an "Essential Recording" for Utah, if not necessarily Ani.For the Army...welcome to the history we were never taught.Take a seat and pay attention.
Fellow Workers isn't an album of alternative rock or folk pop by any stretch. Rather, it's a musical stage on which Phillips tells stories of the American workers' plight and their struggle for rights as the nation developed. And it's a bloody powerful tale he tells, shot through with hardship and death, corruption and plain dirty dealing, and the indomitable spirits of the American men and women who refused to bow down and take less than they deserved. Some he tells in straight storyteller fashion, with DiFranco and Phillip's Mensabilly Band providing a musical backdrop. Others he sings, sometimes alone, sometimes with a harmonic accompaniment by DiFranco and others in the band. Believe me, when Phillips first opened his mouth for a sing-songy chant called "Stupid's Song," I was prepared to dislike this album immensely. But then he launched into the story of Mother Mary Harris Jones, the miners' friend, who at age 83 was labeled by President Theodore Roosevelt "the most dangerous woman in America" -- a fiesty champion of underground workers across the country, driving scabs from the coal pits with a broom and singlehandedly facing down a militia. And I was hooked. ... Read more Asin: B00000IWML |
$16.98 |
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Blue Rambler 2 Average Customer Review:  Audio CD (18 June, 1996) list price: $14.98 -- our price: $14.98 (price subject to change: see help) US | Canada | United Kingdom | Germany | France Reviews (1)
Asin: B000000F50 |
$14.98 |
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Now That I've Found You: Collection Average Customer Review: Audio CD (07 February, 1995) list price: $17.98 -- our price: $13.99 (price subject to change: see help) US | Canada | United Kingdom | Germany | France Editorial Review A poll-winning fiddler since her teens, Alison Krauss was an established bluegrass star when her label persuaded her to step out from her usual projects with Union Station, her crack band, and sanction this compilation of various band and solo guest performances. The ploy worked, yielding a wonderful, odds-beating crossover hit with Krauss's cover of "Baby, Now That I've Found You," a carousing late-'60s pop chant transformed into a delicate, vulnerable declaration of love. Focusing on Krauss's lovely, yearning soprano, the track elevated the musician above her resolutely democratic role in her quintet, catapulting Krauss to the biggest bluegrass success story in over 30 years. Krauss has stayed true to her bluegrass roots, as well as to Union Station, but this cross-section of contemporary bluegrass songs, joyous gospel, and canny rock covers testifies to the young artist's luminous appeal. --Sam Sutherland ... Read more Reviews (102)
Asin: B0000002ME |
$13.99 |
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Appalachian Stomp: More Bluegrass Classics Average Customer Review: Audio CD (20 April, 1999) list price: $17.98 US | Canada | United Kingdom | Germany | France Reviews (2)
This collection mainly focuses on songs that are regarded as bluegrass classics by bluegrass fans but are generally not known by the public, except for two songs that are bluegrass covers of non-bluegrass songs. Fox on the run was a top ten UK pop hit for Manfred Mann in the late sixties but has become a bluegrass standard. City of New Orleans is a folk-country standard, which has been recorded by many fine singers including Willie Nelson, Judy Collins, Lynn Anderson and John Denver. Now you get the chance to hear a bluegrass version by the Seldom Scene. The other songs here feature some of the biggest names in traditional bluegrass including Bill Monroe, Flatt and Scruggs, the Stanley brothers (including Ralph, whose recent albums have done so much to widen the appeal of bluegrass music), Mac Wiseman, Jim and Jesse, The Osbourne brothers and the Country gentleman. Alison Krauss closes the set with one of her early recordings. If you enjoyed the previous volume, you will love this. If you haven't heard the other volume, buy that first.
Asin: B00000IMSA |
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Bluegrass At Newport: Recorded Live At The Newport Folk Festivals 1959, 60 & 63 Average Customer Review: Audio CD (16 September, 1991) list price: $16.98 -- our price: $16.98 (price subject to change: see help) US | Canada | United Kingdom | Germany | France Features Reviews (2)
Asin: B000000ECV |
$16.98 |
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Arkansas Traveler Average Customer Review: Audio CD (21 April, 1995) list price: $13.49 -- our price: $13.49 (price subject to change: see help) US | Canada | United Kingdom | Germany | France Features Reviews (15)
But, if you're a fan filling out your collection -- "Arkansas Traveler" is a must-have. "Cotton Eye Joe" is one of her best songs, ever. But the rest of the album is good-to-very-good as well. If you are a fan, I doubt you'll be disappointed in this album.Even the lesser albums of Michelle Shocked are better than most music out there!
Look, here comes a prodigal son Comedy provides the only lines in the "Arkansas Traveler" song, with a farmer who isn't lost talking to a stranger who would like to know where the road goes.Jimmy Driftwood, who gets credit for guitar and vocals, wrote songs when I was very young."Woody's Rag (W. Guthrie)" is entirely instrumental with a slightly different bunch of pickers. The songs seem to delay their messages for a long time.Singing about a river sets up a situation for "Over the Waterfall," but the reason for the song is saved for the very end:It don't hurt you when you fall, boys; only when you land.The song I like best is "Secret to a Long Life."I don't really need all the fiddle playing.Mandolin, accordian, bass, drums, and guitars in Woodstock, NY are fine backing for the story that song tells.
Asin: B000026NF9 |
$13.49 |
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Will the Circle Be Unbroken (30th Anniversary Edition) Average Customer Review: Audio CD (26 March, 2002) list price: $26.98 -- our price: $24.49 (price subject to change: see help) US | Canada | United Kingdom | Germany | France Editorial Review In an age when the old-timey soundtrack to O Brother, Where Art Thou? sells 5 million copies, it's hard to imagine how revolutionary Will the Circle Be Unbroken seemed upon its release 30 years ago. The triple album (now rereleased as a two-CD set) paired many of Nashville's venerable country and bluegrass performers (Roy Acuff, Mother Maybelle Carter, Earl Scruggs, Doc Watson, Merle Travis, Jimmy Martin, Vassar Clements) with the Nitty Gritty Dirt Band, or as Acuff called them, "a bunch of long-haired West Coast boys." The idea seemed nearly as foreign as Martians setting down in Tennessee, but the Dirt Band were Colorado hippies steeped in the genre, so there was no disputing the authenticity of the music, or its earthy appeal. Aside from the sheer joy of the performances (listen to Jimmy Martin's "whoop" on "Sunny Side of the Mountain"), there's great fun in hearing Roy Acuff give the boys a lesson in doing a song right the first time (and using the word hell before launching into a religious number). And Mother Maybelle wafts through like a benevolent ghost, or at least a patron saint. One caveat: The boast of four previously unreleased tracks is balderdash, since three are really between-track conversations and rehearsals, and only "Foggy Mountain Breakdown" qualifies as a real song. But that's nitpicking. Buy it. Love it. Wallow in it. O brother, that's country music! --Alanna Nash ... Read more Features Reviews (28)
This is a great CD collection. The music is absolutely wonderful to listen to, a real work of art, sure to be enjoyed by any Bluegrass fan. Though the title might suggest that this is a collection of religious songs, in fact only a few are overtly religious, while most are simply Bluegrass tunes played by real experts. I loved listening to this album, and highly recommend it to you! ... Read more Asin: B000063686 |
$24.49 |
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Back Home Again Average Customer Review: Audio CD (11 January, 2000) list price: $17.98 -- our price: $17.98 (price subject to change: see help) US | Canada | United Kingdom | Germany | France Editorial Review Some artists are born to be stars; others are just born to be good. Back Home Again is Rhonda Vincent's return to pure bluegrass after a decade spent trying unsuccessfully to balance genuine artistry with the commercial requirements of contemporary country. Vincent grew up in Missouri singing and playing mandolin with her family band, the Sally Mountain Show. Her father, Johnny Vincent, shares the lead vocal on Ira Louvin's "Out of Hand" and brother Darrin Vincent (of Ricky Skaggs's Kentucky Thunder) plays bass and sings harmony. The album's centerpiece is a hard-driving cover of Dolly Parton's "Jolene" that brings out the song's implicit bluegrass flavor. Other highlights range from the traditional "Lonesome Wind Blues" to the sad country ballad "When I Close My Eyes." Home is where the art is. --Rick Mitchell ... Read more Reviews (17)
Asin: B00003XACN |
$17.98 |
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The Very Best of Ralph Stanley Average Customer Review: Audio CD (12 November, 2002) list price: $17.98 -- our price: $13.99 (price subject to change: see help) US | Canada | United Kingdom | Germany | France Reviews (5)
Asin: B00006SFAR |
$13.99 |
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Roses in the Snow [Expanded] Average Customer Review: Audio CD (16 July, 2002) list price: $11.98 -- our price: $10.99 (price subject to change: see help) US | Canada | United Kingdom | Germany | France Editorial Review Emmylou Harris's 1980 back-to-the-roots album marks a high point in her career. With stellar support from Tony Rice (acoustic guitar), Albert Lee (mandolin), and Ricky Skaggs (fiddle), Harris wanders comfortably and warmly through traditional-country and bluegrass pastures. Skaggs, Dolly Parton, and the Whites add beautiful harmonies as Harris slides effortlessly from the Carter Family to the Stanley Brothers to the Louvin Brothers to Paul Simon. Among the set's peaks are Flatt & Scruggs's "I'll Go Stepping Too," with Rice, Skaggs, Lee (on superb electric guitar), and Dobro master Jerry Douglas turning up the instrumental heat, and the spiritual "Jordan," with Harris, Skaggs, Rice, and Johnny Cash engaging in buoyant four-part harmonies. The 2002 reissue adds a pair of unreleased bonus tracks to the mix. --Marc Greilsamer ... Read more Features Reviews (11)
Wayfaring stranger, a traditional song, became a top ten country hit and ensured the success of the album against record company expectations. This was 1980, remember, when Kenny Rogers was the biggest name in country music and the Urban Cowboy craze was at its height. I love Kenny's music and the Urban Cowboy soundtrack, but there are many different types of country music and it's healthy if they can co-exist. Green pastures is a traditional song that shares the same tune as the more famous Farther along (which Emmylou recorded with Dolly and Linda on one of their Trio albums). On this track, Willie Nelson plays gut-string guitar while Ricky Skaggs sings the song as a duet with Emmylou. Dolly provides harmony vocals but you have to listen closely to hear her contribution. The Boxer is a cover of the Simon and Garfunkel classic. It works well as a bluegrass classic, though Emmylou did not adjust the lyrics for gender. Obviously, not many people minded as the song was released as a single and made the country top twenty. Darkest hour is just before dawn, a cover of a Ralph Stanley song, also features Ricky Skaggs on vocals. That song is followed by the brilliant up-tempo song, I'll go stepping too - if this doesn't set your toes tapping, nothing will. You're learning comes from the songbook of the Louvin Brothers. Emmylou recorded several of their songs, notably If I could only win your love and When I stop dreaming, on her early albums and did much to revive interest in their music. Jordan, an upbeat gospel song, features a few lines from Johnny Cash. Miss the Mississippi and you is a cover of the Jimmie Rodgers classic, brilliantly revived by Crystal Gayle just a year or so before Emmylou recorded this album. While Crystal did it in a pop-country style, Emmylou did it as a bluegrass song. Both are excellent in their different ways - as, of course, is the original version by Jimmie Rodgers. Gold watch and chain completes the original album. It is an old Carter family song and features Linda Ronstadt as duet singer. On the re-mastered Rhino version, you now get to hear those two extra tracks.
Then the vocals!Emmylou's angelic voice is harmonized with Rice and Skaggs.Linda Ronstadt.Dolly Parton.Johnny Cash.The Whites. This recording is every bit as good as ANY of the "Will the Circle be Unbroken" albums, but it is WAY more consistant.AT the same time it's way hotter than the wonderful "Trio" albums with Ronstadt and Parton. There's not a weak track on here.Ralph Stanley, the Louvin Brothers and Simon and Garfunkle's songs never sounded so good. Get it. ... Read more Asin: B0000691TF |
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Ride With Bob Average Customer Review: Audio CD (10 August, 1999) list price: $17.98 -- our price: $14.99 (price subject to change: see help) US | Canada | United Kingdom | Germany | |