Bluegrass!

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Today’s a little pickin’ and fiddlin’ sort of day, since I woke up late (0800!) So I think I’ll drag out The Nitty Gritty Dirt Band. This album is a fine example of the band’s work; it includes their only top ten hit, “Mr. Bojangles,” but there’s also an early version of Kenny Loggins’ “House at Pooh Corner” and a mess of wonderful banjo/mandolin/gee-tar work. This one’s a studio album; I also own the live Stars and Stripes Forever double set. This music is portrayed as the sort of stuff a group of mountain folk might play while settin’ on the porch on a lazy afternoon, but it’s a lot more. Somebody pour me some sun tea and grease up the rockin’ chair. Outta the way, cat! You might lose a tail!
Update: I have no idea whether hearing the news of the death of Gregory Hines influenced my choice today. One of Hines’ influences was Bill Robinson, the man about whom “Mr. Bojangles” was written.

7 Comments

  1. Hi fellow linked!
    Wow, where have I been today? I had no idea that Gregory Hines had passed away. Thanks for this post…I love bluegrass myself. Probably my southern roots.

  3. Mr. Bojangles may have been a hit for the Dirt Band, but it was written by Jerry Jeff Walker. It’s the title song on his first record (Atco Records, 1968). Jerry Jeff’s renditions (the studio version on that record and a live Walker-David Bromberg one recorded at WBAI-FM in 1969) are definitive.

  4. N, this particular album is all covers; not an original on it, so that doesn’t surprise me. What did surprise me was that Walker is still touring! 😉

  5. I saw the Nitty Gritty Dirtband a few months ago. They were still going strong! They were sharing the bill with Earl Schruggs…(he had to be poked when it was time for him to fiddle..)

  6. Since Earl Scruggs (no ‘h’) plays the banjo — heck, he invented the bluegrass three-finger style — it must have taken quite an effort to prod him into picking up a fiddle.

  7. Thank you N in Seattle for correcting my spelling and again correcting my screwing up of naming instruments (hits self in head..)..it is not easy losing details as one gets older-it is embarrassing.
    p.s. his son (yes, it was his son..)still prodded him when it was his turn to play..

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