Decorated Veterans

What did it take to sing tenor to Jimmy Martin?

When he left Bill Monroe for a solo career, Jimmy Martin had to answer that question with a tenor whose power equalled Monroe’s. Martin found the perfect foil in Paul Williams.

A few years ago, Williams got together with two other Martin alumni – Doyle Lawson (who plays guitar here), and banjo man, J.D Crowe. They’ve made a couple of well-received albums, but when they hit the stage, they blow the roof off the dump.

In this clip, they’re joined by Jason Barie on fiddle and Dale Perry on bass – both of whom were members of Lawson’s band, Quicksilver, at the time. And though everyone is in top form, it’s hard not to single out Crowe’s return to a more traditional, blues-based style (He has said he learned a lot from Fats Domino’s piano playing) for his work with this group. This is his best picking in years!

Here they are with Williams out in front, singing one of his signature numbers, “The Hills Of Roane County”.

Jimmy Martin Sneaks Past the Censors

A good ole goodun from Jimmy Martin. Pretty sure the quaint lyrics got him past the censors, but Martin is laughing all the way to the bank.

Everyone is in top form here. This was banjo picker J.D. Crowe’s first Decca session, and he hit the ground running with this track. Earl Taylor, who was far more effective as a sideman than he ever was as a frontman, gets that high, stinging tenor part just right.

This is “Dog Bite Your Hide”.

The Real Source of Keith Whitley's Blues

Maybe Keith Whitley was just a really good singer. On the other hand you wonder why, if he felt this way, did he ever leave bluegrass for the bright lights of Nashville?

It's a legitimate question: For those of you who don't know, Whitley began his career as a duet partner to Ricky Skaggs while both were still teenagers in Sandy Hook, Kentucky. When Ralph Stanley was late to a gig in a nearby town, they entertained the crowd while they waited for the man with the 100-year-old voice.

When Stanley finally arrived, he heard two young voices that reminded him keenly of the way he had sounded with his late brother, Carter, as one of the pioneering acts of the then-infant genre of bluegrass.

Stanley hired both Skaggs and Whitley to join his band, The Clinch Mountain Boys. The music they made is some of the most legendary in all of bluegrass.

After his time with Stanley, and an equally-legendary stint with J.D. Crowe and The New South, Whitley went country. While he recorded some classics, they lack the depth of his bluegrass work. The lyrics may be emotional, but his delivery is as polished and remote as Music City itself.

Whitley struggled with alcoholism for many years -- most of those as a wildly-successful country singer in Nashville. Maybe it's just me, but I think that's more than mere coincidence.

Alcoholism killed Whitley at the relatively-young age of 34.

This is what we lost: Keith Whitley, singing George Jones, with J. D. Crowe and The New South.

This is "Tennessee Blues".

Rock-Solid Bluegrass Gospel From Jimmy Martin Vets

J.D. Crowe, Doyle Lawson, and Paul Williams had all worked for bluegrass legend Jimmy Martin. That shared history gave them a great idea for a bluegrass gospel CD: Why not get together to record a CD of gospel tunes that each had performed with Martin?

Old Friends Get Together, released in June of 2010, is the happy result, and even with all that star power, everyone has some great moments in the spotlight.

"This World is Not My Home" is a tasty duet between Doyle Lawson on lead and Paul Williams on tenor, while Williams turns in a soulful lead vocal on "When the Savior Reached Down for Me."

Two of the CD's best tracks are "Lord, I'm Coming Home" and "Shake Hands With Mother Again". "Shake Hands" is especially tight with gutsy, high lonesome harmonies, and a lead vocal by Doyle Lawson that's pure soul.

Jimmy Martin fans will love the vocal arrangements, which stick closely to those of the original recordings, which often featured women on tenor vocals (Both Penny Jay and Gloria Belle, who also played bass for Martin, filled this vocal spot). Sonya Isaacs and Cia Cherryholmes contribute distinctive high harmonies.

Although the emphasis is on the vocals, J.D. Crowe's picking shines, especially on "Voice of My Savior" and "The Little White Church".

The combination of mountain soul with high lonesome vocals and polished Nashville-style arrangements is pure Jimmy Martin, but the record never sounds like a museum piece. Clearly, this CD was made by a top-notch group of musicians who gave their all and had a great time doing it.

J.D. Crowe has been playing this one steadily ever since he struck out on his own and formed The New South, but this has to be one of the best versions he ever did.

The trio harmonies fit like a glove, and the drive is relentless. This is a good crew – a lot of them have gone on to successful careers and session players and bandleaders, but Crowe is the star, with his peerless banjo work.

This is J.D. Crowe and The New South with “East Virginia Blues”.

One of the greatest bluegrass covers of a (country) rock song ever recorded. You’re probably familiar with Tony Rice’s justifiably-celebrated lead vocal, but this is something different, with another one of J.D. Crowe’s legendary lead singers, Keith Whitley.

Where Rice’s version is full of righteous anger, Whitley’s take (he’s actually singing low tenor here) is almost unbearably fragile.

This is J.D. Crowe and The New South with Keith Whitley, singing Gram Parsons’s great “Sin City”.

I’ve posted clips before but here, at long last, is the full set. From 1975, J.D. Crowe & The New South – Tony Rice, Ricky Skaggs, Jerry Douglas, and Bobby Slone.

Highlights include the opening track, “Rock, Salt, and Nails”; “The Old Home Place” (always a staple of Crowe’s New South sets); “Ten Degrees and Getting Colder” (Tony Rice was the premier bluegrass interpreter of the songs of Gordon Lightfoot) and, of course, “Sin City”, which I believe I’ve reblogged individually more than once. Even so, this performance of it is especially powerful.

A lot of folks would look at this lineup of The Bluegrass Album Band, and see many of the folks responsible for the sound of contemporary bluegrass:

・J.D. Crowe (Banjo, Vocals)
・Tony Rice (Guitar, Vocals)
・Doyle Lawson (Mandolin, Vocals)
・Bobby Hicks (Fiddle)
・Todd Phillips (Bass)

They’d be right, which is just one of the things that makes this 1981 concert so intriguing. As progressive and genre-bending as they have been, these guys can play straight-up bluegrass astonishingly well, and have fun with it, too. In fact, the set is traditional to a fault, yet this band sees traditional bluegrass as the canvas on which they paint their best pictures.

Memorable moments: Crowe’s blazing kickoff of “You Don’t Know My Mind”, which is rivaled by Hicks’s stunning back-up. The way the two of them stoke the fire on “Shuckin’ the Corn”. The way Lawson out-picks Crowe on “Bugle Call Rag” — a traditional banjo showcase. The way Rice and Lawson apply traditional bluegrass elements in unexpected ways on “Sittin’ Alone In the Moonlight”, and the way Hicks outshines his work with Bill Monroe on that same number.

With all that said, I’m only scratching the surface. Enjoy the show.

J.D. Crowe, Doyle Lawson, and Paul Williams were, one might say, The Earls of Leicester of Jimmy Martin tunes, even before The Earls of Leicester came to be. For the last couple of years or so – and two well-received albums – they’ve been covering Jimmy Martin favorites as only three Martin veterans can.

They do an especially good job on this one – “Prayer Bells Of Heaven”. There’s even a good ‘n’ country drummer, just like Jimmy had on his recordings.

When you’re talking about J.D. Crowe & The New South, this was the lineup: Ricky Skaggs, Tony Rice, Jerry Douglas, and Bobby Slone.

You know the reputations and the brilliant work of all these musicians and singers, I hope. If you don’t, here’s a little factoid to give you an idea of how influential this lineup was and is to this day: Their first album is so legendary that it’s known, not by its name, but by its number: 0044.

Legends aside, drunk looks like shit – and sounds far worse – on a certain mandolin player who’d just turned 21. Matter of fact, it doesn’t serve a certain superstar guitarist very well either. The good news is that these days, they both give themselves fully to the music, and their occasions in the spotlight are all the better for it.

I’ve mentioned that J.D. Crowe and The New South, in all its various configurations, are wonderful interpreters of Flying Burrito Brothers/Gram Parsons.

This song, written by ex-Eagle, Bernie Leadon, is no exception. It rambles all over the place – melodically, harmonically, structurally – but the band stays on top of it, paying luminous tribute to “God’s Own Singer”.

In 21st century America, church is almost always a private club where the biblically illiterate worship something – not Jesus – that might be best described as “Americhrist”. Songs about church, as opposed to songs about the gospel, make me wary. A lot of “Church, the way it used to be” songs have been co-opted by the Americhrist crowd. They talk about an old-fashioned preacher, and how close everybody was – a club.

This, too, is a song about church the way it used to be, but anybody listening to the lyrics would never mistake the church described here for today’s American church.

This is The Bluegrass Album Band – J.D. Crowe, Tony Rice, Doyle Lawson, Bobby Slone, and Todd Phillips – with “The Model Church”.

This song has never been considered a gospel song. It certainly isn’t a hymn. But it’s as reflective of Jesus’s preaching and teaching as anything you’d hear on Sunday – more so, in many cases. The second verse is about Bobby Kennedy and talks about his assassination. It’s as sad to contemplate today as it was when it was written. The futility is palpable, both in the lyrics and in this performance.

J.D. Crowe and the New South gave us some stunning interpretations of the songs of Gram Parsons and The Flying Burrito Brothers. This is one. It’s called “Sin City”. And yes, that’s Ricky Skaggs and Tony Rice up there with J.D.

Jimmy Martin, reunited after 25 years with the classic lineup of The Sunny Mountain Boys – Paul Williams and J.D. Crowe – and sounding just as hungry as they did then. It may sound like a brother duet, but in fact, it’s a brother-in-law duet; Paul Williams is married to Jimmy’ s sister, Edria. This is “Hold Whatcha Got”.