Nice compilation video that is new to me
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Nice compilation video that is new to me
Good stuff Alan. Takes me back. Jim
Very timely. "A Traitor In Our Midst" has been on heavy rotation for me the last few months. Really, that entire early-to-mid 70's Gazette catalog.
I believe Kenny Wertz played guitar on that album rather than Roland White (though Roland is clearly the one in the video)...
Roland is just so YOUNG!!!
Oh yes, from a diff era. That LP was among my intro to this music, as my older brother played it at the house growing up. Yep, Kenny Wertz was the guitar man. There was a neat little Byron mandolin tune on it, called Aggravation. And the inside comic book pages were cool, complete with roaches on the table and lusty lasses...ah, the memories...
When I lived in San Diego I played with Kenny in a bluegrass quartet...solid banjo playing and great singer. He had lots of great stories from those days.
Back in the days when Byron was one of the busiest studio musicians in the country!
Thanks for the memory. I have that record, need to dig it out and have a listen again. Great album cover!Quote:
Originally Posted by AlanN
Such a KILLER album! One of the great alternative paths of bluegrass that went largely unfollowed. Those west coast bands like Country Gazette and the Ky Colonels probably owed as much, if not more to Buck Owens than Bill Monroe, imo. "If You're Ever Gonna Love Me" just oozes Buckaroos!
And the second album "Don't Give Up Your Day Job" is practically a Gazette/Ky Cols outing on about half the tracks with Clarence White playing guitar.
The pair of albums came out on a single CD on Beat Goes On (BGO) records out of the UK. I grabbed a copy when it came out, (had the stuff on LPs from way way back).
https://www.allmusic.com/album/trait...b-mw0000078741
You can order a copy for $10 or less (including shipping from Amazon... Belongs in every BG collection, "I Must Say!"
https://www.amazon.com/Traitor-Midst.../dp/B0000011OG
One of the other neglected/ignored BG evolutionary variants was the very first IInd Generation "black album" on the defunct Rome label Eddie Adcock/Jimmy Gaudreau/Wendy Thatcher/Bob White. Impossible to find for years and years, but someone has put the whole record up on youtube. I learned a lot of Gaudreau's mandolin AND Adcock's banjo breaks (on mando) off that record. Back in 75-76 I was living at my deceased grandmother's Finnish cabin on Pasquisett Pond outside of Shannock, RI. Turned out that was Jimmy's home town; his uncle was the local postmaster and his parents lived a few miles up the road, and they let me borrow a bunch of the records he played on including II Generation. Still have the extra copy of The Country Store they gave me.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bS7dIEMcZxI
Around July 4, 1976 JG was in town and I went over to his folks' house and spent a couple hours talking to him. Really nice guy and over the subsequent years supportive and encouraging of all the rock guitar on mando stuff I was working on.
Niles H
I did much the same as mandocrucian - bought both on vinyl back in the 70s and the CD back in the noughties.
My favourite bit has always been Clarence White’s guitar solo on “Huckleberry Hornpipe”.
The II Generation Rome black LP (RLP 1117) is super cool and VERY period-based, complete with a Neil Young song (Old Man), a Beatles number (Hide Your Love Away), Love Is Blue. A couple of the breaks were tabbed out by Niles in that neat little book of Gaudreau mandolin solos.