Customer Reviews

Night of Living Dregs

5 star:		(7)
4 star:		(1)
3 star:		(3)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

For those who are new to the Dregs, their music is a seamless fusion of Southern rock, funk, jazz, and bluegrass (I know, it sounds dreadful, but trust me--it's exhilarating.) Night of the Living Dregs, along with Freefall, are the essential Dregs cds to own, although Dregs nuts (you know who you are) will want to get everything up to 1980's Dregs of the Earth. The album is divided into half studio tracks, half live tracks. The live cuts, in particular, astonish with their energy and peerless musicianship. You think I'm kidding? Steve Morse, the group's leader, was voted Best All Around Guitarist by Downbeat's reader's poll so many times he finally became ineligible to win the award! If you would like to read more reviews like this, check out JazzboNotes.com.

First half of cd are studio cuts that run from hard rockin' to classical.The live set is absolutely great,the guitar and fiddle work on "The Bash" is outstanding.The guitar solo on "Patchwork" is THE best I've ever heard from any guitar player hands down...essential Dregs cd...

I had purchased this in album format Many Years Ago. Always has been one of my favorite albums next to Dregs of the Earth, which I actually found in vinyl as a half speed Master, Audiophile Vinyl record. Steve Morse is one of the most versatile guitarists I have ever seen. It's hard to imagine anyone keeping consistant rhythm with the most precision picking he does. The first half was recorded in the studio. The second half was recorded at the Monteroux Jazz Festival. The live material is almost jazz fusion mixed with bluegrass. The whole album probably touches on anything from rock to avant garde to classical to jazz to bluegrass. The whole band are top notch musicians. Later in the album California Screaming, they added the violinist extraordinaire Jerry Goodman, who's been around playing since the 1960's with the group known as the Flock as a second violinist. You are definitely missing something if you have not been exposed to this band. Steve Morse has done a number of Solo albums as well as a stint with Deep Purple. I've never heard any of his work with this long time rock band. I have never seen a faster guitarist and he is so detail oriented with the music he plays that you will be amazed. I think this album is as good as anything they have ever done and it has always been one of my top albums "Desert Island Classics" so to speak. I am very glad that Amazon carried it because it is usually hard to find if you go to any record store. There are no extras on the CD that make this different than the original vinyl album. This basically makes it a very short CD by today's standards. But there are no complaints about the quality of the musicianship or material performed. Most impressive Album!!!!

Most of the songs on "Night of..." are pretty predictable, about what you'd expect if you are familiar with the Dregs of this era (mid 70s, if my memory serves me). But "The Bash," aka "Wabash Cannonball," recorded live at the Montreaux Pop Festival, is guaranteed to blow your mind! I have NEVER, before or since, heard such fast, precise guitar pickin'!! Especially considering it is a live recording! It blew my gourd right off the first time I listened to it, and still does, 20+ years later. Guys who can pick strings fast are a dime a dozen. But you will listen to "The Bash," and shake your head in astonishment! This CD is worth the $, just for that one song, in my opinion.

The Dregs were an explosive band - formed by music students who obviously had a shared interest at the Music School of the University of Miami. Steve Morse was always the engine driving that train - appropriate for a guitarist of astounding ability (in Guitar Player magazine's annual poll of "Best Overall Guitarist" Morse won five years in a row, which made him ineligible for future years - he became one of two guitarists inducted into the "Gallery of Greats".)

The Dixie Dregs turned heads with their instrumental mixture of rock and jazz, but they ventured beyond most of even the most talented and ambitious fusion bands by also including classical, country and bluegrass flavors into their mix. (The vast majority of compositions, especially early, were all by Morse.)

"Night of the Living Dregs" catches the early incarnation of the band - Morse on guitar, long-term collaborators Andy West on bass and Rod Morgenstein on drums, and Allen Sloan on violin and Mark Parrish on keyboards.
The first half of the album was a studio recording, and the second half was recorded at the Montreux Jazz Festival. All eight selections were written by Morse, except for "The Bash" which was a collaborative arrangement - one part "Wabash Cannonball" and one part "Orange Blossom Special" - the entire thing played at a breathtaking pace.

Sloan studied classically, and on the more formal pieces, he complements Morse well. But while Morse meshes his style seamlessly (as you'd expect) on all his compositions, on the chicken-pickin' numbers like "The Bash" Sloan's attempts to emulate "country fiddlin'" falls flat - the kind of effort you'd expect if you asked Queen Elizabeth to sing "Muleskinner Blues" - or rap. When I first heard the Dregs I was astonished - and couldn't get enough of it. But when I heard the violin parts on "The Bash" I remember specifically thinking "boy... I'd love to hear what Mark O'Connor could do with this... (and I got my wish not long after when "America's Fiddler" replaced Sloan - who was becoming an anesthesiologist - in the band.)

Amazon doesn't allow me to award fractions of stars, and the breath-taking quality and iconic status of this recording makes me award 5 stars.

Highly talented musicians blend a variety of musical genres from country to classical to rock & roll. The result is an album that astounds with its balance of tremendous energy and light ballads.

"Punk Sandwich" is definitely not a punk-style song. No way. It's more like a jam with violins, guitars, and occasionally some keyboards. Nothing punk about it. It's a good short song too. It's surprising how good this band is.

Side One
1. Punk Sandwich 3:18
2. Country House Shuffle 4:15
3. The Riff Raff 3:18
4. Long Slow Distance 6:45
Side Two
5. Night Of The Living Dregs 4:21
6. The Bash 4:28
7. Leprechaun Promenade 3:47
8. Patchwork 4:53

In the 1970s, when fiery-fingered exercises in jazz-rock fusion were all the rage in both the United States and the U.K., the Dixie Dregs brought a Southern slant to the style, injecting a touch of twang into the proceedings. NIGHT OF THE LIVING DREGS (1979) catches the band at a key transitional point. While essentially a studio album, some tracks are from a 1978 concert featuring new keyboard player T. Lavitz, whose synthesizer work would become an important part of the band's sound. Throughout the album, Steve Morse's fiery guitar, Allen Sloan's Jean-Luc-Ponty-on-Wild Turkey violin, and Rod Morgenstern's frenetic, popping bass all play demolition derby amid metrically and harmonically sophisticated compositions that still offer plenty of visceral satisfaction.

The Dixie Dregs never made an album that rated less than 3-1/2 stars, but this is one of those 3-1/2 star efforts. It's just not up to the amazingly high standard of most Dregs albums, mostly because the batch of Steve Morse compositions are a notch below his usual peak. The highlights here are "Punk Sandwich" and "Country House Shuffle". The second half of the album was recorded live at the 1978 Montreux Jazz Festival, and is closer to fusion than most of the Dregs' recordings. Which means that fusion fans may rate it higher than I do. "Leprechaun Promenade" is the best of the live cuts (an even better studio version was recorded in 1988 when the band reunited for a demo CD for Ensoniq synthesizers). "The Bash", a lightspeed bluegrass arrangement of the traditional "Wabash Cannonball", became a fixture at Dregs live shows, but to me it's the least interesting of their country/bluegrass pieces. It's the one time that the Dregs played fast JUST for the sake of playing fast. "Long Slow Distance" is a nice ballad, though it's not in the same league as "Night Meets Light" or "Hereafter".

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