Tracks: I Know How It Feels / Black Diamond Strings / I'm Not The First / When It's All Said And Done / Black Jack / Jesus And Bartenders / Hard Times / I Wonder Where You Are Tonight / Buck's Run / Long Enough To Make Me Blue / Old Kentucky Miners / Deep Mine Blues / Murder On Music Row

Personnel: Larry Cordle, rhythm guitar and lead vocals; Terry Eldredge, bass and tenor vocals; David Talbot, banjo and baritone vocals; Booie Beach, lead guitar; David Harvey, mandolin; and Fred Carpenter, fiddle. Gene Wooten is also featured on dobro on the tide track.

LARRY CORDLE IS A very successful Nashville songwriter who has written hits for Ricky Skaggs, George Jones and Garth Brooks and many others. He is also a very good singer and guitarist and has had three Lonesome Standard Time CD's out on Sugar Hill. The title track has become a hit for George Strait and Alan Jackson and also caused a lot of controversy in Nashville. Most of the songs are co-written by Larry Cordle

'I Know How It Feels' is a brilliant story song to start off, followed by 'Black Diamond Strings'. This tells the story of learning as a boy to pick the guitar using black diamond strings - it's one of my favourite tracks. Another fine story song, I'm Not The First, was co-written with Larry Shell and Melba Montgomery; the latter co-wrote When It's All Said And Done, a song about talking things through. Black Jack is J.D.Crowe and Doyle Lawson's well-known instrumental, originally recorded back in 1969. This fine version brings it up to date and allows all the players, especially the banjoist, to stretch out a bit. Jesus And Bartenders, which compares two very different views of life, was co-written with Leslie Winn Satcher and is another favourite track of mine.

The music for the story-of-life Hard Times was written by Carter Stanley with lyrics by Carl Jackson and Marty Stuart. Johnny Bond wrote I Wonder Where You Are Tonight, but this version in a different key makes it sound like a new song. The second instrumental Buck White's Buck's Run provides another lively workout for the musicians, followed by the sad song Long Enough To Make Me Blue. A track not featuring Larry Cordle is Old Kentucky Miners, a narration by author Bert Colwell, tells a sad tale of the hard working lives of the miners in Kentucky. He is backed by just fiddle and banjo, and it works really well. Deep Mine Blues is another good song about miners.

My own favourite track is Murder On Music Row, co-written by Larry Cordle and Larry Shell, has no banjo but does have Gene Wooten on dobro. It has to be one of the best songs I've heard for a long time. Recorded with a large number of background singers, it has a good live sound and feel to it and tells you in no uncertain terms just what he thinks of Nashville today. This second verse says it all: "For the steel guitar no longer cries and you can't hear fiddles play / with drums and rock and roll guitars mixed right up in your face. / The hag wouldn't have had a chance on today's radio / since they've committed murder down on music row. / Why, they'd even tell the possum to pack up and go back home, / there's been an awful murder down on music row."

Brilliant stuff. This is one of the best CD's I've heard in a long time. A must for every bluegrass fan's collection.(Available from Mike's Country Music Room.)

Ivon Evans, Sunderland

28 June 2000