Video of the week - January 2013
Hi, and welcome to the Video of the week! Every week, I will choose a Youtube video for you to enjoy. These are not videos of us, but videos of bluegrass and country artists that we enjoy. For those of you who don't know much about our kind of music, hopefully you will get acquainted with it, and for those of you who know and like bluegrass, I hope you will enjoy the music and perhaps even learn a thing or two. I will try to write a few words about the song or artist with each video. Stay tuned!
Robin Holliger
28 January 2013 - #8
The Del McCoury Band - Nashville Cats
The Del McCoury Nashville Cats
Delano "Del" Floyd McCoury, like most other early bluegrass players, first started with Bill Monroe & His Bluegrass Boys (notables exceptions to this trend are the Stanleys (Carter and Ralph) and the McReynolds (Jim and Jesse), all of whom had not played with Bill Monroe before starting their bands). Del McCoury joined the Bluegrass Boys in 1963, originally intending to play the banjo, but when he showed up in Nashville, Bill Keith had already been hired on the instrument. Bill Monroe then convinced Del to switch to the guitar and sing lead, which he did with great success. He stayed only a year or so in the Bluegrass Boys, though, and in 1967 he formed his very own band, The Del McCoury Band. He was later joined by his sons Ronnie McCoury on mandolin (in 1981) and Robbie McCoury on banjo (in 1987), and all of them are still active nowadays.
This song is not originally a bluegrass song. It was written by John Sebastian of the 60's rock band The Lovin' Spoonful. One day that touring brought them to Nashville, Tennessee, the band went to a hotel, and heard a guitar player in the lobby that, they thought, played mighty well, better than any of them. How could a random guitar picker play better than them, members of an established band? The song jokingly assumes that everyone in Nashville is a top-notch guitar player that "can play twice as better than I will".
Of special interest in this video are the mandolin solo and the ending. Band members are:
Del McCoury: guitar, lead vocals
Ronnie McCoury: mandolin, vocals
Robbie McCoury: banjo, vocals
Jason Carter: fiddle
Not sure who's the bass player.
22 January 2013 - #7
Reno And Smiley - I'm Using My Bible For A Roadmap
Reno And Smiley
Don Reno and Red Smiley are another one of the great early bluegrass bands. They began playing together around 1951, and formed the Tennessee Cut-Ups. Don Reno had replaced Earl Scruggs in Bill Monroe's Bluegrass Boys, when Earl decided to leave (Reno had actually been asked to join earlier, in 1943, but instead enlisted un the US Army). Later, in 1955, he also played the 5-string banjo on the original recording of Arthur "Guitar Boogie" Smith's Feuding Banjos (better known today as Dueling Banjos, and made popular by the 1973 movie Deliverance). On this video, Reno and Smiley play one of their most popular songs, I'm Using My Bible For A Roadmap.
Red Smiley: guitar, lead vocals
Don Reno: banjo, tenor vocals
Mack Magaha: fiddle
John Palmer: bass
Not sure who's playing the mandolin, but I'd say he looks like a young Ronnie Reno (Don Reno's son).
14 January 2013 - #6
The Stanley Brothers - How Mountain Girls Can Love
The Stanley Brothers
The Stanley Brothers were among the very first to adopt the new style that was created by Bill Monroe and his Bluegrass Boys. They began recording in 1947, at first imitating the Bluegrass Boys, but soon went on to develop their own particular twist on the bluegrass sound. Driven by the fiery banjo of Ralph Stanley and the emotionel voice of Carter, their songs are based upon the perfect blending of their distinctive voices. The Stanley brothers are a real favorite band of mine, and I hope you will excuse that I have been unable to find a good video of them. Unfortunately, there is very few video footage of this tremendously important bluegrass band. I have therefore selected an audio-only (with pictures, though) video of Ralph and Carter Stanley, singing one of Carter's songs, How Mountain Girls Can Love.
Carter Stanley: guitar, lead vocals
Ralph Stanley: banjo, tenor vocals
I am unsure of who the other players are.
09 January 2013 - #5
Flatt & Scruggs - Randy Lynn Rag
Lester Flatt & Earl Scruggs
In 1945, when Bill Monroe appeared on stage at the Grand Ole Opry in Nashville with Chubby Wise on fiddle, Howard Watts on bass, and new members Lester Flatt on guitar and vocals and Earl Scruggs on banjo, it came to a shock. With the novel (although not entirely new) three-finger banjo style of Earl Scruggs, and the lead voice of Lester Flatt (combined with the tenor of Bill Monroe), the classic bluegrass sound was born, and it was not long before other bands would begin imitating what would become bluegrass music (among the firsts of whom were the Stanley Brothers). Three years later, tired of working with Bill Monroe, Lester Flatt and Earl Scruggs both resigned, intending to leave the music business ; although a few months later, they decided to form a new bluegrass band, that would leave a huge mark in history, as Flatt & Scruggs.
This video shows Flatt & Scruggs doing the Randy Lynn Rag, an instrumental tune written by Earl Scruggs and named after his son Randy Scruggs. Earl Scruggs designed special banjo tuners that would allow one to quickly switch a string between two tones, and this is on of the tunes in which he demonstrates this. Band members in this video are:
Lester Flatt: guitar
Earl Scruggs: banjo
Paul Warren: fiddle
"Uncle" Josh Graves: dobro
Curly Seckler: mandolin
Not sure who's the bass player, but it isn't "Cousin Jake", their usual bass player around that time.
02 January 2013 - #4
Bill Monroe, Ralph Stanley & more - I'll Fly Away
A piece of history
This is an incredible video from 1977, shot at Ralph Stanley's Bluegrass Festival in McClure, Virginia. It has Bill Monroe and Ralph Stanley (two of the greatest bluegrass artists) singing together for a beautiful (and apparently unplanned - notice how Bill Monroe asks Ralph to sing the next verse at 1:22, during the banjo break) rendition of the gospel tune "I'll Fly Away". Ralph Stanley, along with his brother Carter Stanley, was part of the Stanley Brothers, possibly the first artists to play bluegrass after Bill Monroe invented it, and one of the greatest and most loved band in the field.
In this video are several bluegrass greats, among whom:
Bill Monroe: mandolin, vocals (on the left)
Ralph Stanley: vocals (on the right)
Kenny Baker: fiddle (on the left)
Curly Ray Cline: fiddle (on the right)
And many more (Keith Whitley, Jack Cook, Carl Story...)
