Customer Reviews

Pickin the Blues

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Pickin' the Blues [Vinyl]

What a fantastic album from Doc and his son Merle (R.I.P.). I don't want to forget Sam Bush who plays on most of the songs either! Every single tune is awesome, that's all I can say.

The sound quality of the recording and the vinyl is terrific. The recording is nearly flawless with all of the musicians heard distinctly and clearly with precision. It's outstanding from top to bottom, with the mid-range being the highlight. This is one of the better recordings I have and it's easy for me to say that it's a demonstration disc, for sure.

This 180 gram vinyl from Analogue Productions is almost dead quiet and playback is very smooth. This record label only uses the original analog tapes and keeps it in the analog realm during the entire mastering process. I like the LP jacket, linear notes, and I really like the labels on the disc itself. Everything is high quality and worth every cent.

Limited to 2,000 pressings
Mastered at The Mastering Lab with Tube Electronics by Doug Sax, Gavin Lurssen and Ron Lewter

I have fond memories of this record ... I somehow chanced upon it in the music department library in Charlottesville some fifteen years ago. The sound-world can grow cloying at length, and it is not the sort of thing I could listen to every day ... but it has a wholesome, feet-on-the-ground quality - while at the same time displaying a fine sense of folksy professionalism - which make it a refreshing break from Other Things. It is a welcome reminder that "Grandma Got Run Over By a Reindeer" is NOT American folk music ....

The music will largely recommend itself (or not, according to taste), so I comment on just a few selections.

Doc Watson's singing is well suited to everything on this album - save "Stormy Weather." Or I should say instead, that even Doc's plaintive no-nonsense singing seems unable to redeem this song for me. Personal taste; no doubt someone else will like this best of all on the album.

"Windy and Warm" is a lovely instrumental number; it leaves you wanting more ... but perhaps it is as brief as it is, knowing not to wear out its welcome.

I grew up playing in high school and community bands, and I knew "St Louis Blues" before hearing this album ... but here it sounds so right, so "at home," that I wonder that anyone had the nerve to arrange it for band/marching band.

"Freight Train Blues" is the same number that Bob Dylan sang on one of HIS early albums - to indescribably different effect. There is a desperation and breathlessness to Dylan's version, which create a definite atmosphere - for some, the "easy" nature of Watson's version will for that reason lack "interest" compared to Dylan's ... but I enjoy the character of the song better here.