There Is a Time (1963-70)

Dillards

Product Details

• Audio CD (November 27, 1991)
• Original Release Date: 1991
• Number of Discs: 1
• Label: Vanguard Records
• ASIN: B000000ECZ
• Also Available in: Audio Cassette
• Average Customer Review: 4.8 out of 5 stars See all reviews (27 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #33,357 in Music (See Bestsellers in Music)

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  #59 in	Music > Indie Music > Country > Bluegrass
  #93 in	Music > Country > Bluegrass > Traditional

Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com
The Dillards combine accomplished picking and harmonizing with a forward-looking approach to bluegrass. These 28 songs follow them from 1963's tradition-based quartet to 1965's fiddle-soaked instrumental virtuosity to open-minded country rock. In a way, their progression makes perfect sense: With their Ozark Mountain upbringing as the foundation, the Dillards absorbed a variety of influences from their new big-city home. The early quartet-with guitarist/vocalist Rodney Dillard, amazing banjo picker Doug Dillard, and mandolinist Dean Webb-offer rousing gospels, a Dylan cover, and classic folk and bluegrass originals such as "The Old Home Place." Fiddler Byron Berline joins the fray in 1965 for potent hot-picking displays. Their later work, featuring Herb Pedersen, adds drums, pedal steel, electric guitar, and even orchestras. Few bands balance the past and the future as successfully. --Marc Greilsamer

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

16 of 16 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars I got yer bluegrass bible & country-rock primer right HERE!, December 12, 2001

By	Kevin Cook "Darlin' Boy" (McDonough, Georgia USA) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

'There Is A Time' is a very satisfying chronicle of The Dillards in the Sixties, with heaping helpings of music representing their growth from journeymen paying homage to the bluegrass gods, to adepts tweaking the same gods' noses and, ultimately, to their most interesting incarnation: cracker-barrel mystics on their seminal albums "Wheatstraw Suite" and "Copperfields," evoking lush earth tone idylls to rival The Beatles' psychedelic ones

The salad days of The Dillards and The Beatles, in fact, were roughly concurrent, but otherwise their stories couldn't be more different. In the beginning (1962), The Dillards were just a little old bluegrass band out of Salem, Missouri who happened to play better, sing better and write better than just about any of their contemporaries. Then, when all but one of the founding members (preternaturally gifted banjoist Doug Dillard, who left in a huff) began to feel like they had mowed all the color out of bluegrass and wanted to try something different, The Dillards recruited Herb Pedersen and midwived a cool, rootsy new musical critter. Somebody with no imagination dubbed the sound 'country rock.' What it was, really, was Dillards Music. And it sounded like nobody and nothing else.

The upshot? In the 1970s, psuedo country-rock bands (especially The Eagles) made a mint homogenizing The Dillards' straight-from-the-cow sound. The Dillards, meanwhile, languished in relative obscurity, even as they continued to experiment and embrace a more electric sound on such LPs as "Roots and Branches," "Tribute to the American Duck" and "The Dillards vs. the Incredible Flying L.A. Time Machine."

If you're an early Eagles fan, I urge you to do yourself a huge favor: Buy this album and hear the difference between real mooing (so to speak) and a See & Say toy.

There's nary a mutt in the bunch and every song is sure to be someone's favorite. For me, one of those is 'Old Man at the Mill,' a song The Dillards transform from a hickish hoedown tune into the first - maybe only - example of square-dance rock. Heaven help me, it makes me want to put on yellow socks and a purple tie with acorns on it and dance like Gomer Pyle. I'm also partial to 'Nobody Knows,' 'Listen to the Sound,' 'Rainmaker' and 'Copperfields,' all of which deserved to be huge radio hits and would have been, had fate been kinder to the star-crossed Dillards.

Oh, and please tell Rod Stewart that Rodney Dillard sang the definitive version of 'Reason to Believe' long before anyone thought he (Stewart, that is) was sexy.

My only complaint: There ain't a single one of Mitch Jayne's knee-slapping monologues from 'Live!!! Almost!!!' Folks, I assure you, this is a sacrilege.

One more thing. If you can listen to overgrown choirboy Herb Pedersen sing the daylights out of 'She Sang Hymns Out of Tune' - a song so hauntingly sad, it not only would've made sentimental TV sister Charlene Darling cry, but probably want to hurl herself off the Robert E. Lee natural bridge in despair - and not miss your mama...my friend, your heart is a brick.

15 of 16 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A gem., November 14, 2000

By	Marjorie Parent-Greenman (Ann Arbor,, MI USA) - See all my reviews

Like most of the reviewers, I first heard The Dillards on "The Andy Griffith Show" and for years never thought of them until Nick at Night began running the show again. I bought this particular cd because it has "There is a Time" on it and I can still see Charlene and the boys singing this in Andy's living room.

I was overwhelmed by how much I like the whole album. From "Copperfields" to the end of the album appeal more to me than some of the others. "She Sang Hymns Out of Tune" entranced me and maybe enchanted me too. I think many of us who became politically aware in the '60s will have a real connection to this album.

All in all it's a treasure.

8 of 8 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars It doesn't get any better than this!, September 9, 2000

By	Karmyn M. Crabb (Huntsville, Tx) - See all my reviews

This is one of the best cds I have listened to in a long time. Like many people I grew up watching The Andy Griffith Show and some of my favorite childhood memories are of the Darling episodes. For years I longed to own some of the beautiful music I heard on the show. This cd has my old favorites plus many new songs that quickly became favorites. Of course nothing could replace "Dooley" or "Ebo Walker" but they sure got some competition with the other songs. This cd proves just how versitle the Dillards are. Do yourself a favor and buy this cd.