Customer Reviews

Bluegrass Favorites

5 star:		(3)
4 star:		(3)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

Waaaaaaaay back in 1963, the San Diego Folk Music scene, like its counterpart in the college community of Claremont, California, was the breeding ground of a whole new generation of folk and bluegrass purists who would soon take the path to new glories in Folk and Country Rock music.

In San Diego, the premiere Folk-Bluegrass band was by far the Scottsville Squirrel Barkers (how they got their name - well, its a Southern thing).

Beach boys just picking and playing that sweet Bluegrass music the way God intended it to be played!

Founded and led by Larry Murray and Ed Douglass, the band included the best and brightest in California Folk and Bluegrass circles, including Murray on Dobro, Douglass on upright bass, Gary Carr on guitar, Kenny Wertz on banjo, and a very young teenage prodigy on mandolin by the name of Chris Hillman. The Barkers built up a strong following in Southern California. This album, recorded in the space of one day at a studio in Los Angeles, is the only Barker recordings saved for posterity.

But this singular album has stood the test of time, and sounds pretty darn good for a recording made for an bargain basement record company. Just give a listen to the duelling mandolin-banjo of Hillman and Wertz on the instrumental version of "Home Sweet Home" with Murray's dobro sneaking in and out in the background!

Just think that within two years' time Chris Hillman would be playing bass in the Byrds, Larry Murray too would go up to Los Angeles and form local favorite "Hearts and Flowers" with Bernie Leadon (who had replaced Wertz on banjo in the Barkers - and ironically Wertz would end up replacing Leadon in the Flying Burrito Brothers) joining him. The three of them would soon be paving that glory road with Clarence White, Gene Clark and Gram Parsons, and creating the genre known as California Country Rock music.

And it all started with a group of guys playing Bluegrass favorites like "Katie Cline", "Shady Grove", "Cripple Creek" and "Willow Tree" in a beach community down the coast from Los Angeles and about as far from the Appalachian mountains as surfers could be!

I discovered this album by the Scottsville Squirrel Barkers in 1962, and was tremendously impressed by it then. I still am. The polish, speed, and brilliance of this band are amazing, even by today's standards. ("Three-Finger Breakdown" is a real stunner!) In 1962 there was no band like them. They were clearly from the Bill Monroe tradition, but brought a higher level of proficiency with all their instruments -- banjo, guitar, mandolin, dobro, and bass -- that not even the Bluegrass Boys could match. Later bands would appear in the 1960s that developed the bluegrass sound beyond its Bluegrass Boy origins (including the Dillards starting in 1963 and the Kentucky Colonels in 1964), but few would ever exceed the standards set on this album. The music of these other early bands has survived as an essential part of today's bluegrass repertory, but somehow the Scottsville Squirrel Barkers and their music lapsed into obscurity shortly after this first (and only) album appeared. For many years it was unobtainable in any form. In recent years it has been available only as an expensive Japanese import, still unknown to most of the bluegrass world. This reissue is a long overdue treasure. Listen and enjoy!

When this album came out, I was a recent Washington DC area high school graduate, a "coming-up" picker in what was then the world's bluegrass capital. My fellow pickers and I thought then that the albume was recorded on instruments detuned by two frets and then speeded up during the post-production (remember, this was in the analog days; if you sped it up too fast, it'd be Alvin and the Chipmunks rather than the Chris and the Squirrels). There was simply no way that people could play that fast!

Nonetheless, I spent years unsuccessfully trying to match the speed and clarity of the instumentalists, and still play four or five of the tunes forty years later.

Get the album.

I bought this album when it first came out; I loved it then and still do. Their playing compares well with any other band, then or now. 'Reuben' and 'Threefinger Breakdown' are my personal favorites. The band broke up when two of the members were drafted. Chris Hillman (mandolin) went on to The Byrds and Flying Burrito Bros, Kenny Wertz (banjo) later played with the Burritos and Country Gazette.These guys played blazing fast, solos are crisp and tight, and the harmony is close. It's a monaural recording (at least my old LP is) but it's an heirloom, an undiscovered treasure in the attic.

Chris Hillman has had a great career beginning with the Byrds and continuing through to today. He is a very good mandolin player and singer.
The SSBs are where he began to be heard on vinyl. The group is tight, the songs are traditional, the licks are good. 10 songs - only 18 minutes.
A mix of instrumentals and vocals. Not quite up to the Dillards level. Get his two solo albums if you want to hear his progression.

For anyone who is a fan of traditional bluegrass music, this is a must have album. It gives you an insight to some early, young bluegrass artists of the 60'S. Excellent musicians.

Well, almost a half-dozen...

Larry Murray - Hearts and Flowers

Chris Hillman - Byrds, Flying Burrito Brothers, Manassas, Souther-Hillman-Furay, McGuinn, Clark, Hillman, Desert Rose Band and Chris & Herb

Kenny Wertz - Flying Burrito Brothers and Country Gazette

Bernie Leadon - Hearts and Flowers, Dillard and Clark, Eagles, Nitty Gritty Dirt Band, Run C&W

See my full-review over on the Import recording.

Sorry I bought this CD. Blue Grass it is not! The vocals are very difficult to understand and the musical instruments sound like they were being played by a group that has no appreciation for the history of blue grass. Very simply they do tunderstand how to play it.If anyone would like my copy, for free, please contact me at charlie@beerleague.com.