Customer Reviews

Wild Hog in the Red Brush

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Last year someone taught me an old time song called "Wild Hog in the Woods". I loved the song, and found another song with the same name. Now, along comes yet another Wild Hog song, the "Wild Hog in the Red Brush", title tune of this album. Like all the tunes in the entire album, this wild hog tune is joyous, authentic, and well documented.

John Hartford plays fiddle on this album, which results from Hartford's research into the music and fiddle technique of the late Ed Haley. Hartford not only gathered the recordings Haley made, he befriended the master fiddler's reclusive family, and collected unrecorded tunes and anecdotes from those who knew Haley.

The "Wild Hog in the Red Brush" isn't either of the wild hog tunes I know: in fact, most of the tunes in this collection are new to me. I'm delighted by this recording: it's fresh and full of happiness. Hartford's fiddle and the backup of the Hartford String Band make these great old tunes come back to life.

If you've never listened to John Hartford, forget everything you think you know about bluegrass and treat yourself to some genuine Hillbilly fiddle. Along with two other fiddle albums recorded in loving homage near the end of his life (THE SPEED OF THE OLD LONG BOW and HAMILTON'S BREAKDOWN), John Hartford has created a lasting testimony to the best in American music. This is music that makes you move your feet.

This is a great CD to both listen to and learn from. I love the song "Squirrel Hunter". It makes use of Hartford's approach to generating variations which he calls "Windows". You will be entranced by this music.

If the CD in the previous review did not make it intact to Tokyo, that is likely to be due to shipping. My copy and my friend's copy both sounded flawless.

We have almost all of the Hartford cds, but just got this one. If you like the fast fiddlin' tunes he does this is a must have. Its very instrumental, unlike many of his cds that have lyrics in every song, so if you are into that this is a good one. There is just nothing like him out there, he was so brilliant!

Can we ever get enough of John? I don't think so. This is such a great CD!

I bought this CD in Tokyo a couple months ago. I tried to play it but got no music. All I got was a kind of scraping, rubbing sound - as if there were some hamster in the machine frantically trying to claw its way out. I have three different players and in every one the same thing happened. Irritating, yes. But that's not the worst of it. I noted the address of Rounder Records on the back of the CD and sent them the damaged goods because it was too inconvenient for me to go all the way back to Tokyo to return the item to the store where I'd bought it. I got no response from Rounder for the longest time so I sent them an e-mail. Again, no response. A few weeks pass and I send them another letter. No response. You can reach your own conclusions about what this says where the people at Rounder Records are concerned. Hartford once warned us in a song ... "Don't leave your records in the sun/ They'll warp and they'll never play for anyone." I can't help but wonder if the fine folks over there in Cambridge, MA, aren't spending a little too much time in the sun themselves. In this age of a booming economy it would appear that accountability for even the simplest things has been lost. Buyer beware. I am out more than twenty bucks because I bought this thing.