By Pete Wraith

Today is Monday and I am the proud owner of The Mountain by Steve Earl and The Del McCoury Band. Grapevine GRACD 252. Fourteen tracks all written by Steve Earl.

Well, if this CD doesn’t win the recording event of the year at the Nashville awards ceremonies then I want a copy of the one that does. If you don’t know Steve Earl (Earthy Country Rocker, with a couple of excellent albums as Steve Earl and The Dukes, namely Guitar Town and Exit Zero) then you should go through his back catalogue. Earl got the rock and roll life style big time in the late 80s (Sex and Scruggs and rock and roll) but over did it a bit on the substance abuse. I think he also did time in the slammer. He reappeared a couple of years ago with some acoustic-based albums with the likes of Doc. Watson. Though albums such as “Corozon” won critical review they never hit the mark for me. The Mountain is different.

The title track, also called The Mountain, has all that is great about this project - Earl and Del McCoury’s contrasting vocal tones and some of the best acoustic ensemble work to come out of Nashville. Not only do you get the mandolin of Ronnie McCoury, trademark ‘screaming’ Del McCoury vocals, Jason Carter’s fiddle but also a host of Nashville’s finest Bluegrass and acoustic warriors. Although there is not a complete list of who is featured on this album, even without the sleeve notes I can remember Iris Dement, Gene Wooten on Dobro, Stuart Duncan playing harmony fiddle, Jerry Douglas crops up as does Sam Bush, Tim O’Brien, Emmylou...

This CD hits the spot. To me it defines a genre “New Mountain Music.” It occupies the niche created by Country music becoming Southern Rock, Old-Timey musicians forgetting that songs have words and Bluegrass... Well, what’s been new and innovative in bluegrass these last couple of years?

Earl’s delivery is full of dirt road and backwoods. Reminiscent of a down-home Bob Dylan (and he sings in tune). Try Leroy’s Dustbowl Blues for a good example to illustrate the point. My favourite track is I’m Still In Love With You. It could have been written by Hank Williams the Hillbilly Shakespeare himself. It’s almost an answer to Hank’s I Can’t Help It..., delivered by Earl and Iris Dement as an acoustic country classic with mandolin, fiddles and dobro to the fore; my kind of country!

The song writing is good. Earl has the ability to make you feel these songs are traditional. Dixieland tells the story of an Irishman being driven from his home by the Brits to the USA. Finding himself in a foreign country looking for a cause, he marches to “Dixieland” to the accompaniment of pipe and banjo.

Steve Earl claims his interest in Bluegrass was fired by his friend the “Bluegrass Buddha”, Peter Rowan. He learned more about bluegrass through hanging out at Nashville’s Station Inn, where he sat in with The Side Men on their Tuesday night picking session. This is no ordinary pick, these guys are the cream of Bluegrass who just happen to live in Nashville and play at The Station Inn every Tuesday. He learned well. This CD is laced with homage to Bill Monroe, through the mandolin playing of Ronnie McCoury and songwriting that takes you to a parallel universe where Bill could have played Country Rock.

I’m not sure if Ed would like this or not. He may not think it’s Bluegrass. (I know how narrow minded he can be on this issue!) It is; Bluegrass is music played by Bluegrass musicians and it looks like it’s moving on, up “The Mountain.”

So there is an over-opinionated review for you, but I suggest you tell your readers to go to any High Street record shop/store and shell out £13.50 for a treat.

Ken Tardley, Curator of The Dalebilly Museum,
Howarth, North Yorkshire.Write to Ken

Editors comments on Pete’s provocative proddings:
I have heard this CD and I think it is great! I like to classify music type so that people will know what to expect and this CD would get the R&R-a-billy-grass appellation. I’m not narrow-minded - I’m just realistic and think that once a band has developed (changed?) outside the bluegrass idiom it should find it’s own platform. Or at least not pretend its’ a Bluegrass band! I prefer “Bluegrass is music played by Bluegrass musicians - some of the time”.

CD supplied for review, and available from:
Mikes Country Music room, 18 Hilton Ave., Aberdeen,
AB24-4RE. Orders: Tel: 01224-488526 (24 hours)
Please see Mikes advert Mike helps us out a lot.

When Steve ‘got out’ and was back doing music, Nashville didn’t exactly roll out the red carpet for him. At a concert in Dec. 1995, his first after being released, Bill Monroe walked on-stage (unannounced an unexpected) and did five songs with Steve. Then he left. That experience was the foundation for Steve’s new album The Mountain. Steve never knew why he was selected by Monroe since he wasn’t even friendly with him. At Monroe’s funeral a friend explained: “When Hank Williams got fired from the Grand Ole Opry, he went down to the Ryman Auditorium. Roy Acuff decide they weren’t gonna let him in. The only person from the Opry who went down to see him was Bill Monroe. Now, Bill had more problems getting along with Hank Williams than anybody, but he thought that what happened to him was unfair.” Steve Earl said that “Bill Monroe didn’t know anything about my music. What he knew about me was what happened to me, or what I did to myself. It was really public. When they dragged me out in my orange suit to go to jail, it was on TV down here. Bill had been here a long time, and he knew there was different rules for different people about how hard their hard times get looked at by the media. For some reason the gloves were off for me. And that was the reason he did what he did.” (N.Y. Magazine, Mar. 22, 1999, pp 112-115)

1st May 1999