Customer Reviews

Will the Circle Be Unbroken

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4 star:		(1)
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I remember the first time I heard this album. It was 1977. I was in college and a friend of mine drove 200 MILES to play me this record, which he had just purchased and listened to exactly once.

Well, needless to say, I wondered how the hell I'd done without this album for so long and I went out and bought my own copy. It has always been one of my favorite albums.

You can't classify this album, really; there's folk, there's bluegrass, there's old time country. (For some of the older folks on this record, like Roy Acuff and Maybelle Carter, this was sort of a last hurrah. Both appear flattered, although uneasy, about the situation in the between-song chatter, but once the instruments kick in they do it like the pros they were. Acuff's gentle admonishment of the Dirt Band -- he equates the situation to a man playing with boys -- is particularly hilarious, when you know in hindsight how professional it's all going to sound.) If you need to call this album anything, call it American music.

So many highlights, so little time: All of Doc Watson's stuff is amazing; Merle Travis and Earl Scruggs both play their hearts out and are truly amazed by the multi-talented longhairs from California and their younger Nashville counterparts, Vassar Clements and Norman Blake.

If you only buy two CDs in your life with this kind of music on it, make it this one and John Hartford's Aereo-plain. Both will make you dance and tap your feet and sing, and show you that country music, when it's done right, isn't such a bad thing after all.

The chorus of praise for this incredible set, that is.

I notice a couple of the reviews that are already here have said what i've said on a more or less regular basis since i bought the original edition of this album -- this album belongs in EVERY music-lover's library, no matter what sort of music you THINK you like.

Listening to this album has always been a revelation for me -- what is revealed varies from time to time, but every spin shows me something to think about.

(Lately, listens to this set mostly engender dark ruminations on the parlous state of country music in the year 2000...)

Recorded live in the studio -- no overdubs, no "sweetening" -- mixed *directly* to a two-track master to catch the spontaneity, this is the True Country Tradition made accessible and available.

A couple of minor gripes --

The track timings listed on the inlay card are correct for the songs, but many of the tracks include a fair amount of studio chatter, and actually run long.

One of the inner sleeves of the original 3-LP version featured a reprinted article from the Nashville paper and (i believe) a "Rolling Stone" piece on the project; it would be nice to see those items here with the CD version...

An Interesting Note: Dean O Torrence, credited with the cover graphics on this set, is none than other half of the Sixties surf-music vocal duo.

You Need This Recording.

In bluegrass and old-time circles this album is referred to reverently. Listening to it, you begin to realize what it was about traditional music that makes it so attractive. It is able to bring folks together, not only crossing generation gaps, but also, as evidenced in this ablum, crossing musical genres.

There are many folks, including me, who were first introduced to folk and bluegrass legends like Doc Watson, Jimmy Martin, Merle Travis, Vassar Clements, Mother Maybelle Carter and Earl Scruggs, through this album. We thought we were buying another Nitty Gritty Dirt Band album, but got much more than we bargained for.

This album is filled with memorable moments and performances. For example, among guitar flatpickers this recording of Doc Watson's "Black Mountain Rag" is the one that first hooked many of them onto flatpicking, causing them to leave rock and roll and never look back.

The mood of this album is informal and fun, with much in-between song banter among the artists, and yet the musicianship is impeccable. Like the banter before "Down Yonder" when Doc asks Vassar Clements "How DOES it go Vassar?" and Vassar leaps into the pickup and everyone else jumps in after him without missing a beat. And the moment that Roy Accuff tells everybody before one of his takes that he doesn't like to do retakes so get it right the first time.

If you've ever wondered what it would be like to sit in on a long recording session with a bunch of bluegrass and country legends this is it. It is a classic recording filled with classic performances.

It would be pretty hard to make a bad album when you start off with Jimmy Martin singing the "Grand Ole Opry Song," and the Nitty Gritty Dirt Band does not disapoint. WILL THE CIRCLE BE UNBROKEN is fantastic music.

What other band would have attempted anything like WILL THE CIRCLE BE UNBROKEN? This is more than a tribute to the roots music the Nitty Gritty Dirt Band loved, it is a complete bowing down to the masters of Country and Bluegrass--no member of the NItty Gritty Dirt Band sings lead on this LP until the 15th track. The 15th track! Talk about humility.

I've told friends, if you want to get a basic understanding of traditional American music, and don't want to sink a lot of money into a large Country/Bluegrass collection, there is no better place to start than WILL THE CIRCLE BE UNBROKEN. It was a stroke of genius to put the LP together in 1972, and it is a masterpiece that everyone should own today.

This album is the bedrock of modern country and bluegrass music. It also represents a turning point. Before this, there was country, there was folk, and there was bluegrass. This album found the commonalities in all three of these, while at the same time it showcased the best of each individual style. After this album, none of these three forms were ever so isolated again. The song selection is fabulous, representing a sort of sampling of classics from 50 years of country and bluegrass music. No record library is complete without Circle. As for Circle II, it is interesting, but never appraoches the magic that still, thirty years later, is evident in the first one.

I don't even like country music. My parents listen to all the 'new' country and drive me insane when I visit them. But I'm in the middle of my first listen through Will the Circle Be Unbroken and I truly love it. Just the feeling of natural music, the musicians being real people, trying work work together...it's refreshing and yet old and comforting at the same time. I think about the polish of today's country and I wonder what happened. Take this CD and just sit and listen. You'll want to start singing, dancing, driving, and gardening (although not necessarily all at the same time.) (:

This is one of the greatest albums in country music ever released. This was first released on 3 LP's in 1972 but it has been reissued on 2 CD's. While the whole collection is great, some of the great examples of the music include "Grand Ole Opry Song," sung by Jimmy Martin, "Keep On The Sunny Side," which Mother Maybelle recorded for the first time using autoharp on this set, Doc Watson's cover of the Jimmie Driftwood classic "Tennessee Stud" which became a hit for Eddy Arnold, the title track, all of Roy Acuff's work on here. Just like one review said, this is natural sounding and sounds fine the way it is. Buy this. This is a must for all listeners of music. You'll learn about where country and bluegrass music came from yet at the same time it is modern as many Dirt Band fans back in the day this first came out thought this was just another Dirt Band album, they found out different and this may convert you into a country fan if you aren't a country fan already just like it did to the rock and roll fans who heard this for the first time back when it came out.

I remember listening to the album as kid withmy father and attending the old Fiddler's convention's and hearing this great bluegrass music. It brings back many fond memories and if this music doesn't move your soul - you have none!

If you only buy one country music album in your life, make it this one. Put on disc two and enjoy the great instrumentals then breathe in the fine flavor of the entire show. It is a true masterpiece.

Forget Volume 2. Bruce Hornsby manages to ruin the spirit of the original.

Everyone, regardless of musical interest, should hear this recording. The sound is not only immediately satisfying, the best part is learning more about the source of the music itself... for example, why is Mother Maybelle Carter so revered (look elsewhere on the Amazon site)? Listen to "Wildwood Flower," and you'll be hooked.

I first heard this masterpiece when I was in college. Some friends put on the 3-record set (Remember records?) and sang along with Wabash Cannonball I think it was. After listening to the whole collection, I got the set...and got the CDs for my birthday years later.

I don't think of it as a Nitty Gritty Dirt Band album, maybe unfortunately for them. Indeed, I'm not that much of a bluegrass fan (having had a housemate for a while who over-played the banjo.) But the music of this collection is fabulous. Just to listen to Doc Watson is incredible. (How can a guy pic that fast?) The songs are, I'm told, classics among the bluegrass repertoire.

From tunes Doc Watson's picking of which would make Alvin Lee jealous, to sentimental tunes, especially the title number, a kind of bluegrass requiem, you can't go wrong. I'm just now looking at the names of the 38 tunes on the set. Fantastic.

The performers are talking between the numbers too. Not frivolity but musical detail. They really are professionals despite their lack of credentials.

Oh, and I heard reference to the album--which I am proud to own--on public radio which was discussing the best-selling soundtrack to "O Brother, Where Art Thou," also bluegrass. They felt the soundtrack was reminiscent of this collection (which was assumed to be a distant memory to listeners.)

Anyway, between the classic numbers, and the classic performers, who other reviewers have named, I can't recommend the album strongly enough.

Be prepared, though, to hum tunes that strike a chord with you after you've listened to it. (I got in trouble where I worked as I listened to it, then sat at a computer humming and whistling all day! And I wasn't humming "Taps"!)

...You are my flower....that's bloomin' in the mountain so high....

Oh...sorry.

Get it, and enjoy it.