Earl Scruggs Revue

Earl Scruggs Revue

Earl Scruggs Revue, Rockin ' 'Cross the Country, Columbia KC32943

Earl Scruggs has been constantly searching for new and innovative things to do with his banjo. Since the early days of Bill Monroe's Bluegrass Boys in the early fifties, Earl has pioneered the banjo to its current level of respectability. He has been continually searching for new techniques and types of music; he once played a duet with a synthesizer. Along the way he also fathered two sons, who lately have been one of his major influences. They followed in their father's footsteps, then he began to learn from them. Today, the music of The Earl Scruggs Revue is a unique blend of old folk/bluegrass and new rock trends.

Many of Earl's southern contemporaries have chastised him for polluting the traditional music and playing with "hippies", which his sons are. Earl also turned up at many anti-war rallies a few years back, further jeopardizing his position with the older southern music fans.

Personally, although I'm a great fan of bluegrass music, I've found Earl's ventures in to the rock genre on his last two albums less than satisfying. Until now. On Rockin ' 'Cross the Country, the bluegrass-rock combination works much better, because the emphasis is on the traditional music and the banjo is the prime mover in all the songs. Even the title re-emphasizes this point as the "country" in the title refers to both the land and the music.

The Earl Scruggs Revue is Earl on banjo, Randy Scruggs on guitars, Gary Scruggs on bass and vocals, Josh Graves (a contemporary of Earl's) on dobro, Jody Maphis on drums, and, for this album, Shane Keister on keyboards, who turns out to be the most joyous surprise of all. He tinkles the ivories in the Allman Bros. southern style and is stunning throughout. The album also features Linda Ronstadt and Bonnie Bramlett on occasional back-up vocals.

The strongest cuts on this album are the two instrumentals, "Good Morning Sundown" and "Silver Eagle" written by Randy and Earl respectively. The rest of the tunes feature vocals by Gary who handles them all with a great deal of mediocrity, but the music throughout this album is the best.

The weakest cuts are the obligatory blues number "Back Door Lover" by Gary and the obligatory Dylan tune "I Shall Be Released" featuring the lamest vocal of all.

Saving the best for last, I must say that Earl's arrangement of "Will The Circle Be Unbroken?", closing out side one, is one of the finest cuts laid down on any record. It starts out in slow hymn style with vocal and organ. After the first verse, Earl kicks in with a crackling banjo and the song builds from there. Each verse and chorus is set off by the tastiest instrumental solo with each group member taking his turn. The fever pitch is reached in this old gospel number when Bonnie Bramlett answers each chorus with such intensity you just know she's talking to the lord! If they'd have played music like this when I was worshiping as a kid, I'd be shouting Hallelujah! to this very day.

Clearly the Scruggs family appreciates the old and the new in American music and hopefully they'll be able to continue to develop a style fusing the best of the hippie and hillbilly traditions. --Bruce Weinberg