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5.0 out of 5 stars
Warners UK bluegrass compilation, August 2, 2002
This review is from: Tennessee Mountain Home: 23 Bluegrass Gems (Audio CD)
British compilations of country music have greatly improved in recent years. Now, following the success of O brother, we have this amazing collection of 23 bluegrass gems culled from the Warners archive. You might look through the list of artists and think that some of them aren't bluegrass, but all the tracks included here qualify. In some cases, the chosen track may be the only piece of bluegrass they ever recorded, but if that gets the music to a wider audience, the bluegrass specialists will reap the rewards eventually - and some of them (including Ricky Skaggs, Delia Bell, the Cox family, Randy and Earl Scruggs) are included here.
I was already familiar with several of these tracks, though I suspect that for most people who buy this in Britain, every track will be new. Of those that I already knew, there are two tracks that stand out - Maria Muldaur's cover of My Tennessee Mountain Home (which first appeared on her self-titled album featuring Midnight at the oasis, and which is the best cover of a Dolly song I've yet heard - I can't quite admit that it beats Dolly's own version) and Carlene Carter's cover of My Dixie Darling (which first appeared on her I fell in love album, one of my all-time favorite albums).
Dolly appears on this CD, with Emmylou, as backup singer on Linda Ronstadt's cover of another Dolly song, My blue tears (which first appeared on Linda's Get closer album).
The CD begins in impressive fashion with Emmylous's Roses in the snow, continuing with a lesser-known gem by the Everly Brothers followed by Duelling Banjos, one of the most famous bluegrass tunes of all time - this time by the original hitmakers.
Not only are there two Dolly covers, but there are also two Beatles covers. The Charles River Valley Boys recorded a whole album of Beatles covers in the mid-sixties. I own this, and I would probably have chosen a different song to Baby's in black for this collection, but their album (titled Beatle country) is still available from Amazon. The other cover is the Forester sisters' version of I've just seen a face (which the CRVB also covered).
There is some terrific music here which is ideal as an introduction to bluegrass, but a great addition to even the largest bluegrass collection. How many of these tracks do YOU have?
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