Your Top 5 "Newgrass" Tunes of All time

[MandoManCaleb]

Just thought it'd be fun to see what people's favorites were. What tunes really made you reconsider how traditional acoustic instruments could be used? Here are mine:

1. EMD from the original DGQ album.
2. Manzanita from Tony Rice's Manzanita album.
3. We Hide and Seek from Jerry Douglas' Slide Rule album.
4. Key Signator written by Darol Anger. There is a stellar live version on the DGQ retrospective album.
5. Spanish Point from Bela Fleck's Bluegrass Sessions album.

At any point in time this list probably changes for me. But these songs are staples in my rotation whenever I want to hear some incredible music. Nothing really scientific about this, just thought it'd be a fun conversation and maybe be a way for everyone to hear some new tunes! Though, mine aren't exactly obscure in the bluegrass/newgrass world

[dcoventry]

Blue Midnight from the DGQ 20th Anniv. album. Yowsa.

Breakin' New Ground - Seldom Scene 20th Anninv. album. Lou Reid, whoa.

Blu-Bop - BFFT if that counts
http://archive.org/details/bfft1991-08-02.flac16

Thrill Is Gone - Grisman and Garcia

Most Sam Bush live concerts
http://archive.org/details/sbb2010-08-21.mtx.flac16

Please do check out the live offerings I linked. The Bela and Branford Blu-Bop is exceptional.

[AlanN]

Guess this will depend on one's vintage (age). Agree with OP on choices (although not familiar with 5). I would add:

Rice - Old Grey Coat. Acoustics was the original LP appeared on, with Sam. The version on Darol's Fiddlistics is sublime, with Mike M., T. Rice and a piano. Also from that LP is Dysentary Stomp, with its light and dark groove. Just terrific. Some others:

Waiting on Vassar - DG Rounder
Dawg's Rag - Kaleidoscope F-5
Janice - Hot Dawg
Ybor City - Gator Strut
One-Legged Gypsy - Bobby Clark

Good thread.

[tree]

What tunes really made you reconsider how traditional acoustic instruments could be used?

I'd have to say the entire original DGQ album. After that, Backwaters and Still Inside. Those really opened the gates for me.

[tmsweeney]

all great choices listed above

I'll have to go with Gasology from Acoustics TRU
Richochet from DGQ
Hang Hang from Short Trip Home- Meyer Bell Bush Marshal
Rotagilla from the Duo- Marshall and Anger
Crooked Smile from Late As Usual Sam Bush

can not find the Fiddilistics version of Key Signator - great tune
also the original Still inside with Night Coach - I think Tony does that with John Carlini as well
also Mar West very hard to find - but great album from TRU- whoa baby every day I wake up with the blues

[AlanN]

Good ones.

You do know that Rotagilla is Alligator backwards...

I do not know if Fiddlistics ever made it to CD, fantastic recording. Very eclectic, Tiny Moore on Moose The Mooche,

And Still Inside and Mar West are packaged together in the release called Devlin. Agreed, great recording(s).

[tree]

More recently, the Benson/Bibey collaboration, The Mandolin Chronicles. Don't really know what you'd call it except great music, but man I LOVE the way it was recorded!

[tmsweeney]

Good ones.

And Still Inside and Mar West are packaged together in the release called Devlin. Agreed, great recording(s).

cool just added to my amazon cloud!

[AlanN]

I'll have to go with Gasology from Acoustics TRU

Yep, burn your face off. Sam's solo was noted out in an old MWN, and Dave Peters took it one step further and captured all of those crazy Bush niggles before he launches into the full solo. Just a great transcription by Dave of a great solo by Sam.

Richochet from DGQ

Marvy tune, brought to the band by one Richard Somers.

can not find the Fiddilistics version of Key Signator - great tune

Indeed. The late John McGann did a great transcription for me of a Rocky Grass performance of this tune by Marshall, Anger, Grier, Phillips that I'll always cherish.

[Willie Poole]

Alan, surprise, surprise....I thought you were just a traditional bluegrass man....I haven`t been able to broaden my choices to include much "newgrass"....It could be that I don`t have the talent to play all of those fancy licks and chords that people are using now days....

To each his/her own though....

[John Duncan]

All of Bela Fleck's "Drive"

Jerry Douglas' "Whose your Uncle?"

Alex Hargreaves "Big Hook"

Matt Flinner's "Half Moon Dog"

Dominic Leslie's "The Crow"

[Ken_P]

Nobody's brought up Strength in Numbers yet? Any example from that album will do. Favorite tunes, in no particular order:

Big Bug Shuffle from Skip, Hop, and Wobble
BT from Short Trip Home
Bubbles from Melody of Rhythm
G-22 from Chris Thile and Edgar Meyer
Franz and the Eagle from Goad Rodeo Sessions
Sliding Down from Uncommon Ritual

Yes, I'm an Edgar Meyer fan, why do you ask?

[fatt-dad]

Lonesome River Blues from the first Newgrass Revival album. I mean you just have to have one tune from NGR's first, 'cause it set the bar fror newgrass.

f-d

[tmsweeney]

Yes, I'm an Edgar Meyer fan, why do you ask?

off topic but Meryer's "Work in Progress" is on my top 10 desert island list

just Bass and Piano but incredible music

I was fortune enough to see him perform it live with the pianist Amy (Green?) can't remember her last name

and now back to new grass....

[Ethan Setiawan]

A bit off topic, but I saw Chris Thile and Brad Mehldau in Indy last night and that was one of my top 3 mandolinistically inspiring events in my musical life. Top 5 you say? Hm...

You Will Change Me-Joy Kills Sorrow
Callin' Baton Rouge-NGR
Opus 57-DGQ
Bowl Of Bula-Mark O'Connor
Something off Not All Who Wander Are Lost

And lots more-there are so many!

[Mandolin-Tele]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x05z27blg80

[AlanN]

Alan, surprise, surprise....I thought you were just a traditional bluegrass man....I haven`t been able to broaden my choices to include much "newgrass"....It could be that I don`t have the talent to play all of those fancy licks and chords that people are using now days....

To each his/her own though....

If Dogs Run Free...

Willie, to quote the lovely and talented Russell Johnson:

I'm a bluegrass man
from head to toe
I love the sound of Flatt & Scruggs
and Bill Monroe.

You still love me, right?

[tmsweeney]

Listening to Devlin ( Mar West and Still inside) although I lament the absence of Tzgiani and Mar East I find years ago I was just so blown away by this music I couldn't even comprehend attempting to play it
Now I find I am comfortable enough to play along with some of it and that makes it all the more enjoyable

Interesting to hear the 3 different mandolin players mixed in like that
Marshall was new on the seen, a lot younger and somewhat wild, kind of like white lightining out of the jug
Bush brings a more traditional approach, more Monroe-ish
but Reischman - man he is smooth - controlled and tasteful

Tony was on fire - I think it's Mar West where he does a trill bending the string for like 4 bars - keeps absolute tonal control

[AlanN]

I know what you mean about the strength and tonal qualities of this music. 30 years ago, nobody else was doing this. Now, pickers try, but something is still not there.

Sam - Mr. Hip. Every solo he took on that stuff required keen listening to pick up every niggle he did. Very exciting.
Mike - His solos on 4 on 6 are way cool.
John - His chordal solo at the end of On Green Dolphin Street thrilled yesterday, thrills today.

I read a FRETS piece some time back (T wrote a technique column) where he said he actually slid up 2 frets during that Mar West trill. Whatever he did, I fall down every time I listen to it.

tmsweeney - do you have the July-1981 McCabe's show? It's the Backwaters band, very great.

[David Lewis]

Metric lips - ngr

Souvenir bottles, Sam bush

Thile.

Big country Bela fleck and the fleck tones.

Sailing shoes Sam Bush and John Cowan


List subject to change.

[Marty Henrickson]

I can't narrow my list down to 5 tracks...

Bill Keith - Caravan (from Something Auld, Something Newgrass, Something Borrowed, Something Bluegrass - which was the first recording featuring David Grisman and Tony Rice playing together)

David Grisman Quintet - 3/5-6/79 - every track is fantastic

DGQ - 25th Anniversary Show -every track is fantastic

TRU - Live at McCabe's 1982 - every track is fantastic, Four on Six and My Favorite Things are my favorites

Larry Keel and Natural Bridge - Ghost Driver, Swarmin' Bees (from Backwoods), Pioneers (from The Sound)

Mark O'Connor, Chris Thile, and Bryan Sutton - Jerusalem's Ridge (from 30 Year Retrospective)

Sam Bush - Junior Heywood (From Circles Around Me)

David Peters - Vonetta (from Dawgfinger), Blue Six and Dark Eyes (from Live At Ovations), and Lonesome Fiddle Blues (from Art In America)

[300win]

...top five ?....I'll just make it simple....for me it's what I call the 'green album'....the Newgrass Revival's album where on the cover they are in front of a old green building and on the back everything is colored blue....Sam, Courtney, Curtis and Ebo....to me they are and always will be the pinacle of what is called 'newgrass'....any five tunes on that album....there are none better...

[ralph johansson]

I question the label "newgrass". At least, to me, DGQ, Strength in Numbers, and the O'Connor Retrospective (with two possible exceptions) have nothing
g at all to do with Bluegrass, or, for that matter, the music of the Newgrass Revival. Also, is the question about the tunes or about recorded versions of tunes? People seem to assume the latter.

[AlanN]

Agreed. The bands you list are really not New Grass, which to my mind was a very short-lived, narrowly defined sub-genre spawned by one band only. I suppose the New Deal String Band would better fit the bill back then. And I would put Bill Keith's Something Newgrass record in there, too. The Charles River Valley Boys had a hand in the trend, as well. Now? Who knows.

Maybe the NGR made it easier/paved the way for the Grisman, Rice, O'Connor, Bela things. It all happened amidst each other that it really was a blend of influences and grooves that led the way to the acceptance of new sounds coming from traditional bluegrass instruments.

[Ken_P]

Is this really necessary? Wasn't this exactly the problem NGR faced when they started out, that they weren't "bluegrass" enough? Do we now have to criticize those who came later (never mind that Strength in Numbers, for one, featured two NGR members) for not being "newgrass" enough? I think the term has come to very loosely define music played on bluegrass instruments, but can diverge pretty substantially from the source material. There's really no need to start the genre wars again because people broke away from the original - that's the spirit NGR was formed from to begin with!