CD re-issue: "Basic Library"
The current issue of Stereophile mag has an article devoted to the resurgence of bluegrass music, and offers some suggestions for some "basic library" recordings of bluegrass. (Editorial comment: the article leaves a LOT to be desired as an introduction to bluegrass recordings, as anyone who knows the music at all will quickly realize.)
One of the recordings recommended in the article is the 24-bit remastered CD of the 1971 3-LP set "Will The Circle Be Unbroken", re-issued earlier this year. The album was ostensibly by the Nitty Gritty Dirt Band, but it featured a number of the finest bluegrass / country singers and musicians, including Maybelle Carter (Johnny Cash's mother-in-law), Earl Scruggs (of Flatt & Scruggs fame), Doc Watson, Roy Acuff, Merle Travis, and a number of outstanding bluegrass musicians.
I wore out the LP version of this album that I bought in the early 1970's, and was really pleased to learn that Capitol Records has re-issued the recording in a 24-bit digital remastering. There are a number of features to this recording, other than the stellar musicians, that made it a virtual landmark recording:
1. it was tape recorded at 30 ips, with no compression, limiting, or other processing, so the audio quality is outstanding;
2. the tape was kept running during the recording, and much of the musicians' banter between numbers was preserved;
3. the recording was done over a 6-day period, so the musicians really had time to relax and work together, and it shows in the playing.
From an audiophile's perspective, as well as a bluegrass lover's, this is a terrific recording. The best recordings eiter bring the performers into your room (usually close-miked versions with almost no room ambience), or
succeed in taking you into the room with the musicians. "Will The Circle Be Unbroken" is the latter type of recording, and it definitely succeeds in making you think you are in the studio and part of the proceedings. The sound quality of this recording is wonderful: real voices and instruments in a real space. The notes from the CD booklet include the following remark by the members of the Nitty Gritty Dirt Band:
"We recorded for 6 days, and on the 7th day ... we played back. Thirty years later, listening to the remastered original two-track analog tapes, we are reminded how magical that time as for all of us. "The Circle" stands as a record of an event of unusual proportions, a presentation of music that DID change the world, created by players from simple backgrounds whose purpose was just to play music for the sake of music. We thank them all..."
The 2-Cd reissue (Capitol 7243-5-35148-2-2) costs about $25 (maybe a bit less if you order it online from Tower), and worth every penny. If you liked the movie soundtrack from "O Brother, Where Art Thou?", or the CD "Down From The Mountain", or are entranced by Allison Kraus and Union Station, then you owe it to yourself to listen to the "real stuff" by the masters of the genre. This CD reissue gets "2 thumbs up" from me!
(As a closing comment, I submitted a review several months ago about a bluegrass recording by Tony Williamson & The Williamson Brothers Band, titled "Still Light of the Evening" (on the Mapleshade/Wildchild label). I thought then, and still think, that the album one of the finest bluegrass recordings I have hard in many years, and a much better addition to a "basic library" than many of the recordings recommended in the Stereophile article. For more info about "Still Light", see the review I submitted.)
