Customer Reviews

Foggy Mountain Jamboree

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Before its reissuance on CD, there's a reason that "Foggy Mountain Jamboree" was a heavily sought after Flatt & Scruggs LP. It's classic bluegrass of the finest quality. Recorded in Nashville from 1951-1955, it was produced by Don Law who provided for a high level of quality control. Besides Earl Scruggs and Lester Flatt, the rest of the band included some of the finest bluegrass ever assembled at the time: Curly Seckler or Everett Lilly (mandolin), Benny Martin, Paul Warren or Howdy Forrester (fiddle), and Josh "Buck" Graves (dobro). While every cut has strong emotional and historical value, I especially like the material that featured Lilly's wonderful tenor voice soaring above Flatt's solid and expressive lead vocal.

The bluegrass classics include Flint Hill Special, Some Old Day, Earl's Breakdown, Jimmie Brown the Newsboy, Foggy Mountain Special, It Won't Be Long, Shuckin' The Corn, Blue Ridge Cabin Home, Randy Lynn Rag, Your Love is Like a Flower, and Reunion in Heaven. The CD reissue adds three new bonus tracks (On My Mind, Dear Old Dixie, Pray for the Boys), as well as new liner notes from Bob Cherry. I never tire of hearing Earl twist those Scruggs tuners in the middle of a breakdown. Also, the songs are a testament to the songwriting abilities of their wives who penned four of the songs including the timeless "Blue Ridge Cabin Home."

At the time of its recording, Flatt & Scruggs toured widely throughout the southeast from Lexington to Tampa, Bristol to Roanoke, and Knoxville to Atlanta. Tennessee-based Martha White Mills thought that they'd be a great band to sponsor and feature on their radio broadcasts, and that support brought them steady weekly paychecks without all the heavy road work.

Lester Flatt passed on in 1979, but Earl Scruggs will turn 82 on January 6, 2006. Scruggs recently appeared at Merlefest and Bonnaroo, and he has been the subject of much national media attention. In September, 2005, I caught him leading an enthusiastic rendition of "Foggy Mountain Breakdown" with four other banjo-players on the David Letterman Show. Flatt & Scruggs' impact on bluegrass goes without saying. Their names are synonymous with the classics of bluegrass. My hats off to Columbia/Legacy Records for re-releasing this inspirational and stimulating Flatt and Scruggs material on CD. (Joe Ross, staff writer, Bluegrass Now)

There are two Flatt and Scruggs albums that sum up all you really have to know about bluegrass music. The first is the album "Foggy Mountain Banjo" and the second is "Foggy Mountain Jamboree". Here you have Flatt and Scruggs, two of the icons of the genre, at their peak vocally and instrumentally. The bluegrass classics of "Flinthill Special" and "Earl's Breakdown" are recorded here and are two standards every 5-string banjo player wants to master in order to become worthy to be known as a bluegrass player. The vocals, especially "Blue Ridge Cabin Home" and "Jimmy Brown the Newsboy" are classics that mark a certain era in the development of bluegrass music and define the way it should be done. If you are beginning to build a bluegrass library, this is the cornerstone for your collection. One listen and you'll understand why Flatt and Scruggs were revered the way they were by lovers of this style of music.

Pure on the instruments and harmonies, with lyrics long on reflection and meaning. Lester and Earl didn't put this together with the thought of going gold, this is about as true and soulful as bluegrass gets. Even though these two are probably the best pickers that ever lived, they show extraordinary restraint on the slow songs, focusing instead on the story, melody and that trademark harmonizing. And when they pick....well, they light it up. This album will send you back to the days when a wagon pulled up against a barn was a proper stage!

This is one of the best of the Flatt and Scruggs releases on Columbia. I got my original LP copy back at the beginning of the 1960s, and still treasure it for the great music and instrumental prowess of Lester and Earl and the Foggy Mtn. Boys. You WON'T go wrong with this one, if you're into the vintage sounds of bluegrass music.

This was Lester and Earl's first album for Columbia Records and all the cuts are from the early 1950s. Even on the earlier vinyl lp, the sound was absolutely top-shelf, and performance-wise the band is at its absolute peak. These are also the first recordings (by F&S) to feature the landmark Dobro playing of Josh Graves.
What makes these cuts even more pure sounding, is the absence of Columbia's later studio ambience/reverb-so the recordings presented on this CD sound really up-front and direct.
This is my own choice for "Best Bluegrass Album EVER"-and it definitely belongs in every Bluegrass fan's and every musician's music library.

Same old, same old Flatt & Scruggs,. Rather boring. Every tune ends with the da, da, da, da, da ------da,da! I need a break.