Hold on We're Strummin

Sam Bush, David Grisman | Format: Audio CD

Product Details

• Audio CD (September 23, 2003)
• Number of Discs: 1
• Label: Acoustic Disc
• ASIN: B0000CA0SX
• In-Print Editions: MP3 Download
• Average Customer Review: 4.8 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (8 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #101,331 in Music (See Top 100 in Music)
  • #42 in Music > Rock > Jam Bands > Bluegrass Jam Bands

Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com

You won’t have to be a mandolin aficionado to get delightfully caught up in the complex rhythms, exotic melodies, and entrancing syncopations of this mandolin super-duo’s first album-length collaboration. Yet only students of the instrument are apt to appreciate the extraordinary level of musicianship contained in this eminently listenable, all-instrumental collection. David Grisman is a former member of Earth Opera, founder of The David Grisman Quintet, and the late Jerry Garcia’s occasional sidekick in the erstwhile bluegrass band, Old & In The Way. Sam Bush is a founding member of The New Grass Revival and has played mandolin on the records of everyone from Allison Krauss to Garth Brooks. Each, in his own right, is a master of the contemporary newgrass/new age mandolin. And on tracks like the droning, bluesy "Swamp Thing," the soaring "Intimo," and the doleful "Weeping Mandolin Waltz," they inspire each other to reach even deeper into their grab bags of hot mandolin licks. --Bob Allen

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

15 of 16 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Mandnificent vehicle that's full of spirit, energy & groove, October 4, 2003

By 

J. Ross "a-music_fan" (Roseburg, OR USA) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Hold on We're Strummin (Audio CD)

Playing Time - 70:22 -- David Grisman's music has been described as bluegrass-jazz-Gypsy-rock-Middle Eastern-Hebraic- folk-classical-Grisman." Sam Bush also has very eclectic tastes, and Grisman once said about Bush, "He's got everything: incredibly powerful rhythm, great solos, and he can play in any style. Everything he plays is just there - not just headed there, but fully realized." Then, there was the time that Sam called David one of his "musical heroes." Sure seems kind of surprising that these two outstanding all-purpose pickers and friends since 1965 haven't collaborated on a recording project sooner.

Of the sixteen tracks comprising over 70 musical minutes, there are eleven new joint Grisman/Bush originals that range from slide mandolin ("Swamp Thing") to a John Hartford tribute ("Hartford's Real"), straight-ahead Dawg ("Intimo" and "Sea Breeze") to graceful gospel ("The Old South"). Less easily categorized are the more improvisational and jazzy collaborations "Jamgrass 741," "Arachnid Stomp," and "Mando Space." A melodic "Weeping Mandolin Waltz" is a showpiece for the mandoduo to feature their simultaneous tremolos in harmony. A strange little half-minute "Rhythm Twins" seems like it could've been further developed to a full length piece. "Crusher and Hoss" was named for their legendary Gibson mandolins. I believe that David's is a 1927 Gibson F-5, while Sam's is a 1930s F-5 that he acquired from Tut Taylor about 1973. Jethro Burns' "'Cept Old Bill" is a tongue-in-cheek piece with vocals (and even a few grunts and groans) that pays respect to each other as well as the Father of Bluegrass. "Ralph's Banjo Special" is probably the closest piece to bluegrass, while there's even an old-timey offering, "Old Time Medley" with the boys sawing fiddle and frailing banjo.

Besides fiddle, Sam plays mandolin, National mandolin, octave mandola, mandocello, banjo and bass guitar on various tracks. Besides mandolin, David picks mandocello, octave mandola, mandola, and banjo-mandolin. With their arsenal of strings, Sam and David cover all the instrumental bases on seven tracks, while nine also feature guest artists including Jack Lawrence (guitar), Enrique Coria (guitar), Jim Kerwin (bass), Hal Blaine (drums), Sam Grisman (bass), Dimitri Vandellos (guitar), and Jim Nunally (guitar).

Back in the sixites, Sam and Dave (the Motown guys, remember?) sang, "when the day comes and you're down, in a river of trouble and about to drown, just hold on, I'm comin'." Now, the other Sam and David and letting their eight strings of fame do the vocalizing. They close this album with an absorbing and entertaining instrumental cover of the famous Motown song, and if you're down and about to drown, you can almost seem to hear those mandolins singing, "Hold on, We're Strummin'!" Grisman and Bush clearly feed off each other, and this project is one that is long overdue as a vehicle to musically illustrate their eclecticism, spirit, energy and groove. It's a mandnificent album. (Joe Ross, staff writer, Bluegrass Now)

11 of 11 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Superb musicianship, February 26, 2004

By 

J. Ross "a-music_fan" (Roseburg, OR USA) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Hold on We're Strummin (Audio CD)

From my perceptive friend, Bill Jolliff:
So what's left to say about HOLD ON, WE'RE STRUMMIN'? When two of the mandolin virtuosi of generation get together to do a mandolin CD-featuring mandolins, mandolas, mandocellos, and a plethora of other vintage woodwork-where do we begin? The musicianship is superb, but we knew it would be. The production-arrangements, selections of instruments, the mix, the feel--is understated and precisely appropriate to the project, but we knew it would be. Even the physical package itself is colorful and entertaining and attractive, but then, we knew that, too-and Grisman does run Acoustic Disc.

About the only question is the material. When players at the level of Grisman and Bush decide to make art together, the material chosen, it seems to me, becomes one of the few real variables. I've picked up more than one CD with equal promise, listened to it once or twice, then put it on the shelf-just because the material doesn't cut it for me. I'm glad to say that's not the case here.

I always listen once before I read the notes, and as I did so, what struck me was the fact that I was not recognizing the tunes-or precious few of them. Of course I recognized the tunes in the old-time medley, and I had heard Grisman play "Daniel Boone" with Jake Henry last fall in Portland, but the others were new to me. Fact is, they were new to everybody: Twelve of the tunes on this 70-plus-minute CD are brand new, and 11 of those were co-authored by Bush and Grisman. It boggles the imagination to think of how the two must have got together and explored on another's creativity for-days, weeks, longer?-to develop this superb set.

And, in spite of the fact that the album was a "sure thing," I was still surprised by the quality. Maybe I was expecting something more overtly hot, something more along the lines of a "Can You Do This?" style of superpicker collage. If so, I underestimated these two and their sense of ensemble playing. The feel of the album reminded me a little of the material that John Hartford was doing with his studio productions in the `80s. This is not hot-jam music: it's tastefully textured string band music, much of it with carefully worked out harmonies, performed at moderate tempos. Oddly enough, I mentioned the Hartford comparison to Jake Henry, who had already bought his own copy before my review copy came, and he told me that the name of the first tune is "Hartford's Real." So maybe we're talking about influence as well as a common musical heritage.

That said, let me add right away that, yes, the Latin and world music influences that color so much of Grisman's recent DGQ work is here, and these players are clearly accustomed to playing for audiences that expect six- or eight- or ten-minute jam-outs instead of our three-minute bluegrass vehicles. Also, a bluegrass afficionado like myself was stretched a little by the jazz and pop chord structures. But,overall the music is not far out in any negative sense, and none of it is hot for the sake of heat. It's not bluegrass, but it is beautiful string band music that demonstrates both traditional and contemporary influences. If you can imagine the material that Norman Blake was putting together with the many versions of the Rising Fawn
String Ensemble (before he went the "singer of old songs" route), then make the harmonizations more complex and use a little more rhythmic variation, you have some of the vibe that this CD creates.

Here's an example of one of my favorite touches. "Sea Breeze" a tune I would call light jazz, ends with the musicians quoting "Sally Goodin'" variations. They run this cut almost seamlessly-completely without spin-up time-into. the next number, which begins with Dawg frailing the banjo and continues with a medley of old-time banjo and fiddle duets. This manner of taking an old-time musical heritage and pushing it further along a different line of development is typical of the sort of innovations these artists create.

So maybe it's a little late for a review of this album. But for those of you who didn't buy it on faith last fall, let this be your reminder to put it on your list. If you like mandolin music and string band music and don't mind the fact that it doesn't sound like southern Ohio bluegrass in 1969 (that's the tough one for me), it's time to hit the road to Cartwright's and spend your allowance. (Bill Jolliff, reviewer, Nwbluegrass Yahoogroup)

2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars SUPERLATIVE - WOW - SUBLIME - GREAT GOOGLIE MOOGLIE!, May 7, 2004

By 

applewood (everywhere and nowhere) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Hold on We're Strummin (Audio CD)

Sometimes (rarely) a CD comes right out of the package and jumps right out of the player and delivers on every track, a work of magic, a play of the divine... and this is one of those, a real treat to the players (obviously) and listeners. These guys are just so good and their playing just so infectiously fun. I like them both alot on their own but this is WAY better. It doesn't get any better. Need I say more?