Customer Reviews

Out Standing in Their Field Vol 2

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Fans of the alt.country movement should go back to the roots to see where the folk-country scene came from. No one takes old-timey songs and updates them better than the New Lost City Ramblers did, unless you like the fun spin that the Holy Modal Rounders put on it. (Also VERY highly recommended, the newly compiled Holy Modal Rounders 1 and 2 on one CD.) Classic old-timey music fills this 70-minute collection of tunes culled from early New Lost City Ramblers albums. If you like a good smile, check out No Sales Tax on the Women. Any Deadheads out there will like Don't Let This Deal Go Down, which the Grateful Dead morphed into Deal. The digital audio restoration quality is top-notch and this collection is essential to anyone whose interests lie in folk or alt.country, or Americana as it's now being called. There's not a weak link on this collection, which captures everything from traditional ballads to Piedmont blues and everything in between. If you're like me, this collection will enchant you so much that you'll buy its sequel, "Out Standing in the Field," which culls music from 1962 to the mid-60s. Five stars, only because I can't give it more...

This is a compilation of the New Lost City Ramblers after Tom Paley Left. I confess I am old enough to be used to feeling the world was divided between people who felt that the NLCR was no good after Paley left and those who were willing to accept New Commer Tracy Schwartz who probably going to take the NLCR out of Western Swing and into Rock and Roll or some other forms of modern foolishness. I wonder if there would have been such squacking if the Ramblers had obtain the services of the man they wanted to replace Paley with, Doc Watson!!!

I remember going down to a record store off Dupont Circle in DC on one afternoon in 1965 when I picked up the first post Paley Album "Gone to the Country." Boy were those bluegrass numbers, the Stanley's I'm just a Rovin' Rambler and Little Glass of Wine. But it wasn't just up tempo, on that CD was the marvelous, obvious medieval, and mysterious "Little Carpenter" and Mike Seeger's superb banjo picking on his friend Dock Bogg's tune "Down South Blues." And who can forget their swinging Wild and Western Hobo.

The Ramblers were off. I think they were more adventurous in the years coming. A few tunes that were Western Swing and several early bluegrass tunes, and some things like Seargeant John Q that were taken out of the electric Nashville Country Music. And Tracy who was a much better fiddler than Mike Seeger and who has become a great fiddler (and now even Tom Paley has become a great fiddler and one of the leading experts on old time fiddle, just today I was passing around the Net his last intervention on Fiddle-l) and took the band into Cajun music and backward into unaccompanied music, or great model accappella and banjo music.

So much variety. So much joy, so much dedication to the traditions, to the sounds that came from back porches, and parlors,. barbeques and barn raising, and yes stages in Movie Theaters, school houses and even that awful Ryman auditorium.

Today a lot of people who think they know something about old time music have forgotten that the Ramblers pretty much started it all. They present a much better survey of the music and the culture than do a lot of current bands that are more about cashing in on the contra dance industry than they are about reviving the music.

Get this, so you can get all the rest of their records, now availabe by order from Folkways.

The New Lost City Ramblers have done an amazing job in recording their versions of classic old time music. They have a reverent respect for these old tunes but have certainly put their stamp on the styles and methods in which the songs have been played. If you've never owned any music from TNLCR, then this is a great place to start.

Got this for my 83 year old father who is recieving chemo for his lung cancer. He was soooo happy. He just LOVES it.

He had tried many times to find it and their others through places like the Smithsonian Archives, but was unable to do so. He was amazed when I told him I got them from Amazon. I informed him that whenever I need or want to find something I always try Amazon.com first. And I usually find everything I'm looking for.

Back to The cd: I had not heard this music before and just fell absolutely in love with them!!

If you enjoy this kind of music you will love this cd and their others that are available on Amazon.com. Can't wait 'til the other ones come available.

Recently I was listening to a local talk show here in Boston in which the subject was which way at least part of the American music scene was headed. One of the premises of the show was that "roots" music, you know, the blues, ragtime jazz, and the mountain music that is to be found in this album was once again going to form the new "in " music. Fair enough. These genres have been mined before for their expressions of Americana and they can be mined in the future for that same purpose. But here is the question that I have that underlies that above-mentioned radio show premise. How is that "roots" music, and here I want to concentrate on mountain music and other traditions genres, transmitted?

Well, one answer to that question, before the last "dust-up' a few years ago with the movies "The Song Catcher" and George Clooney's "Brother, Where Art Thou', was the folk revival of the early 1960's. And one of the key groups that consciously sought to find and play that music in its old form was the group under review, The New Lost City Ramblers. Needless to say, having Mike Seeger the legendary Pete's Seeger's half-brother involved meant that there is going to be a very deep respect for those traditions. And it shows here in this compilation of their work from 1963-73. There is pure mountain music, some ragtime, some elemental jazzy things, some impromptu jug music, a little talking blues, Cajun; in short everything one needs to investigate the music of the folk before the arrival of serious technology changed the regional nature of folk and traditional music forever. Listen here for thoughtful renditions of these types of music and respect for the instrumentation of the times.

Some tracks you should pay particular attention to are "Victory Rag", the much-covered "The Titanic", "Cowboy Waltz" and "Dear Okie". Nice.