Track Listing

1. Pig in a Pen
2. Midnight Moonlight
3. Old and in the Way
4. Knockin' on Your Door
5. Hobo Song
6. Panama Red
7. Wild Horses
8. Kissimmee Kid
9. White Dove
10. Land of the Navajo

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #35032 in Music
• Released on: 1996-01-30
• Number of discs: 1
• Format: Live

Amazon.com essential recording
The landmark original 1975 release, these 10 songs provided a bridge between traditional and progressive bluegrass. The presence of Jerry Garcia greatly expanded the bluegrass audience, exposing thousands of fans to mountain music for the first time, but Garcia's melodic banjo picking and soulful baritone are also essential ingredients. Former bluegrass boy Peter Rowan contributes three now-standard original cuts, and the band covers material ranging from traditionals and Stanley Brothers favorites to the Rolling Stones. Fiddle master Vassar Clements represents the tradition, soaring freely through the verses and breaks with astonishing fire and grace. It remains an important historical document, although the two recent Acoustic Disc volumes (also recorded during the band's only tour in 1973) offer even greater performances and more selections. --Marc Greilsamer

Customer Reviews

If you're thinking about buying this...
You can order it directly from Vassar Clements's website www.vassarclements.com for $18.50 including shipping. Save yourself about 20 bucks and support one of the musicians that played on the record.

An essential bluegrass album!
This CD brings together some really incredible musicians! Not only do you have the considerable vocal and banjo talents of Jerry Garcia but also you've got David Grisman, and Vassar Clements: on Mandolin, and Violin, respectively. Garcia, Grisman, and Clements seem to be competing with eachother on each track for who can pull off the best solo on their instrument. They don't do this intentionally I don't think but they might as well be competing because all three are awesome throughout this entire CD. I didn't know that Garcia could play such a mean banjo, he can actually stay up with Grisman and Clements, who are elite in their field anyway. Grisman is probably one of the best Mandolin players of all time. He is especially good on Wild Horses. To give you an idea of how good Clements is on the violin I'll tell you about the time I went to a bluegrass concert that featured him. Clements was playing with John McCuen and a couple of other guys. Clements must be like 70 years old and he blew every one else off the damn stage. This was recorded when he was I guess around 40 or something and he is just as incredible. The solos he comes up with are SO BEAUTIFUL. All of the tracks on this CD are great and many of them are bluegrass standards. One of the best tracks is their version of Wild Horses which makes you think the Stones should have done it in a bluegrass style in the first place. It's wonderful. This CD is great. I love it! You will probably like it alot too. Once you listen to bluegrass you can never go back.

Memorable, often haunting in its arrangements and harmonies.
I was first introduced to this recording in the middle 70's. At that time,the popularity of Dawg music was yet to come into its own(Grisman), I had never been a Dead fan or heard much of Vassar's haunting fiddle. I was familiar with Bill Monroe and the Bluegrass boys, but not with Peter Rowan (although he would later become one of my favorites). But, I found this album to be representative of the essence of what makes Bluegrass music great. A blending of various styles and musical backgrounds with Bluegrass accoustic instrumentation and harmony. Being from upper East Tennessee, the musical style felt right with my mountain roots and the contemporary adaptation satisfied the tastes endemic to my generation. In the intervening years, becoming more of a serious Bluegrass fan and musician, I would often revisit this ecclectic recording armed with what I felt was a more refined idea of what good Bluegrass should be, expecting to be less than I remembered. My newly refined ! taste did not reveal inconsistencies as I expected, but revealed nuances that I had missed before in the musicianship, harmonies and blending of these talents. Although I would not consider this to be an archetypical Bluegrass recording, it is certainly a significant event hinting at the Second Generation re-interpretation that we have today in contemporary Bluegrass. I would highly recommend it as being worthy of inclusion in anyone's collection. This landmark will be around for a long time.