Disk Title: "Bluegrass Music"
Titles: Lord I Fell in Love with Thee, It’s Raining in My Heart, Jesus Rose from the Dead, When the Grass Grows Over Me, Mary Ann, In The Nettles, The Judgement Day Is Near, The Field of Blooming Flowers, Melody for Baby, The Old Man in the Park, The Sun of My Lifetime, The Meadows where the Railroad Ends, You Can Give Her, You’ll Reap what you have Sown.
The Review
Yer Ed. asked me to review this CD only the day before I was due to visit the Czech Republic. This was to be my eighth visit to the former Czechoslovakia and, amongst other things, I thought I was quite familiar with the Czech bluegrass scene. The Czechs’ love of bluegrass is related to a movement called “Trampers”; groups of people who walked the countryside, camped, sat round campfires and played protest music, country and bluegrass.

There are two extremes to the Czechs’ approach to bluegrass. At one end there is Druha Trava and Pontnici who play with soul, rocking bass, lots of energy and jazz influences and sing with bass-gravel voices. At the other extreme bands sing bluegrass with full American style harmonies and sound for all the world as though they have just spent the last five years playing bluegrass festivals in North Carolina. Monogram are an excellent example of the second type. Like another young Czech band, Vbank Unit, they sing beautifully with hardly a trace of accent and their playing is as good as you’ll hear in any corner of the USA. The production and studio work are excellent, vocals are clean and well balanced with instrumental work brought forward and back into the mix to make good bluegrass.

This CD is all the more remarkable because members of the band have written 9 of the 14 tracks. These are not 9 run-of-the-mill numbers; these are tracks that would grace the CD of many first division bands. This CD is a bluegrass gospel album reminiscent of a Doyle Lawson product, though it doesn’t have the high tenor voice associated with the master. The tunes though are in the genre, inventive, the words hang together well and the stories told offer a new twist to the gospel (not that I’m an expert, Vicar!). The line-up is guitar, banjo, mandolin, upright bass and the outstanding Czech dobro player Lubos Novotny is featured on various tracks. I’m not going to review every track - but just say that this is a very, very good album. I’ve played it to friends who are steeped in the bluegrass tradition and they have also pronounced it good! I hope someone can persuade Monogram to visit the UK - they would delight a British audience. I have to send this CD back now - where can I get my own copy?

Pete Wraith, Leeds.

Editors note: The CD is available direct from Arthur Robinson and from Frets Old & New.

Updated 23rd Jan 1999