Customer Reviews

Foggy Mountain Banjo

5 star:		(19)
4 star:		(1)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

If you are a beginning bluegrass banjo player, and you want to know the sound you should strive for, seek no further. This is it right here.

I have played the 5-string banjo for nearly 40 years now, and when I feel like I need a shot of the best, this is the album I play. I learned to play the banjo from this album when it was available only on vinyl. Now I have it on CD.

Earl's tone, steady rhythm and impeccable taste permeates this album completely. This is the basis from which bluegrass banjo is built.

And if you need an example for dobro, fiddle or upright bass, it's on this album, too.

Every bluegrass instrumentalist needs this album.

This is still the Bluegrass Banjo CD by which all great Bluegrass Banjo is judged. It probably always will be. This CD is one of the reasons I fell in love with the hard driving sound of bluegrass banjo. Scruggs invented the 3 finger style and his mastery has never been equaled. In my humble opinion, this is the best single snapshot of Scruggs Style banjo ever recorded. Although it's a short CD, if you love bluegrass banjo, you will never grow weary of listening to this one. All songs are performed without lyrics and all are performed 3 finger style. If you own only 1 banjo CD, this is the one to own.

I'd be will to bet a small fortune that Bela Fleck, Tony Trishka, Bill Keith, Raymond Fairchild, Jerry Garcia, Sonny Osborne, and just abount anyone else who ever had the fever to learn how to pick the 5-string has a worn-out copy of the original LP of "Foggy Mountain Banjo" (and probably had a record player with 16 RPM to slow down Earl's playing so that they could figure out for themselves what he was really up to). Amd while the aforementioned represent a treasure trove of talent (and in the cases of Fleck, Trishke, and Keith, drove the banjo to greater heights), any one of them would readily acknowledge the debt they owe to Earl Scruggs, whose remarkable style of playing remains as fresh and exciting today as when he first debuted it in the Grand Ol' Opry almost 60 years ago.

This collection is not particularly exhaustive, and because of it being all instrumental, does not feature a lot of Earl's trademark "up-the-neck" back-up that is more prevalent in his other work with Lester Flatt. But I'll bet another small fortune that if you're a beginning picker and can learn how to master the tumbling cresendo of "Groundspeed," the modal underpinings of "Cumberland Gap," and the dazzling harmonics of "Bugle Call Rag," you are well on your way to becoming a first rate banjo player. But don't think for a second that you'll figure it out overnight - I can personally attest to that!

I wore out the first copy of this album I bought in 1961. I spent countless hours listening to this music at half speed, so I could laboriously pick out each and every note that Earl played on this album.

The sound on this album is glorious. The banjo (and all the other instruments for that matter) comes through quite clearly. It illustrates Earl's picking when he was at his very best. The backup licks on this album form an essential part of the repertoire of every would be, wannabee bluegrass banjo player.

If you can sound like this -- then you will become a fine banjo player.

Sonny Osborne once told a famous banjo reviewer, in an unpublished interview, "If you want to be a bluegrass banjo player, start by learning everything Earl ever did. Then you will have the basics." or words to that effect.

The advantage of this album for that purpose is its clarity. Too bad it is so short.

The warning about limited sound quality on the back of the CD is totally unnecessary. Stunningly immediate sound for one of the greatest of bluegrass instrumentals. Another essential set, the Complete Mercury collection, is dreadful by comparison. There, Earl's banjo sounds like a bag of tin cans falling down a flight of stairs, and the fiddle is like a dental drill. But here, you can jump for joy with nary an earache. And if the playing time seems too short for a CD, well, you can always push the Repeat button. You probably will anyway!

Foggy Mountain Banjo is simply a masterpiece. No other bluegrass album has ever exuded such quality! The timing, the tone of the instruments, even the cover art is the best ever.

No other banjo collection, and quite possibly no other bluegrass album, will ever surpass this.

This is bluegrass nirvana.

This is by far the best of the best! There has been no one to even come close to what the master can do with a banjo-this recording proves that without a doubt! The style and tone on this recording will touch the soul of the listener and forever stand as the benchmark to which all other banjo music will be compared.

This is it. The single greatest bluegrass instrumental album available. If you get no other, let this be the one.

Most of the songs on this CD are traditional. I have heard most of them performed in numerous arrangements by a number of artists, and yet no other versions come close to the ones on this release. Even after forty years, every song on this CD is completely fresh. Earl was at the peak of his abilities- it is astounding the driving, rippling power and impact that he and the other performers put into these songs.

Even if you are not a blue grass fan, I would strongly recommend this CD- it is just too powerful. Try putting it up against the most explosive rock/heavy metal or jazz performances and you will see what I mean.

It is impossible to give this work too much praise.

The sound of bluegrass music is so elemental and raw that it feels like it's been around forever. Surprisingly, it's not much older than rock 'n' roll; the first true bluegrass star, Earl Scruggs, is getting way up there but as of mid-summer 2006 was still alive and giggin'.

"Foggy Mountain Banjo" could well be the most important recording ever for banjo fans and - perhaps more importantly - banjo pickers. "The Essential Earl Scruggs" offers a much better overview of Scruggs' career, but this disc features many of Scrugs's most important compositions and arrangements (the famed Foggy Mountain Breakdown is NOT on the disc, but every banjo noob's first song - Cripple Creek - is here in all its glory, as are Groundspeed, Cumberland Gap and Fireball Mail).

Rip this disc and slow it down, and you hear how essentially simple Scruggs's left hand (fretboard) fingering is, and how deceptively difficult his right hand (picking) movements are. The right hand is everything with Scruggs; banjo players study every note. Since this disc was recorded a lot of pickers have come forth whose left hands are as busy as their right, producing more complex and considerably more melodic breaks (listening to Don Reno, JD Crowe, Bill Keith, Tony Trischka, Bela Fleck and Jens Kruger is a good way to understand the progression of the instrument). But each of these later players owes it all to Scruggs and the sound he created.

This disc puts mid-career Scruggs front and center, so fans of more modern bluegrass bands might find it somewhat lacking. The tunes aren't complex and the arrangements are simple. At the time this music was recorded the bluegrass guitar was considered purely a rhythm instrument; Lester Flatt was of course the master of bluegrass rhythm playing but there are no flatpicking breaks for guitar players to marvel at. Essentially, lead on this album swaps between banjo and fiddle - there's only minimal dobro and no mandolin. Because only two instruments are stepping out and trading lead, the songs tend to be short - 2:27 is the longest of the dozen songs on the disc.

Anyone learning to pick a banjo needs this disc in their collection - it's a primer on how it's done (no less a player than Tony Trischka will tell you that). For fans of traditional bluegrass, it's an essential. And for those interested in the more modern forms of the evolving art of bluegrass, it's as important a disc as exists. Everything comes from here.

Lester Flatt & Earle Scruggs are to bluegrass what Bob Marley is to reggea and William Shakespear is to English Literature -- the original and all-time greatest. If you like Bluegrass and/or Country music and haven't heard Flatt & Scruggs, you simply don't know what you're missing.