The Bluegrass Breakdown 6/26/26 Playlist and Replay
By Mike Stevenson
Tonight, we’re playing Bluegrass music – with the occasional addition of “Ol Timey” tunes ( likely the oldest form of North American traditional music ), “hillbilly” and various offshoots featuring banjos and other stringed instruments, brilliantly played by hippies & stoners (as John Sebastian wrote) “clean as country water and wild as mountain dew!”
Audio available for 2 weeks after original air date
OPEN: That High Lonesome Sound
– Peter Rowan “That High Lonesome Sound” (Rowan) Nashville Bluegrass Band
– Bill Monroe “Blue Moon of Kentucky” (Monroe)
– Tim Eriksen & Tim O’Brien “I Wish My Baby Was Born” (trad, from the film Cold Mountain)
– Sierra Ferrell “I Can Drive You Crazy” Trail Of Flowers, 2024
– The Osborne Brothers “Rocky Top” Yesterday, Today, And The Osborne Brothers 1968
– The Louvin Brothers “I Don’t Believe You Met My Baby” Live From the Grand Old Opry, reissue 2019
– Roy Acuff “Freight Train Blues” (J Lair)1938 Vocalion Records
– Uncle Tupelo “Acuff-Rose” (J Tweedy) Anodyne, 1993
– Del McCoury “Learnin’ the Blues” Del and the Boys, 2007
– NRBQ “Hit the Hay” (T Adams) Grooves In Orbit, 1983
– Infamous Stringdusters “Jessica” (D Betts) 2017: Undercover Vol. 2
– Leon Russell & New Grass Revival “Jumpin’ Jack Flash” (Dylan)
– The Seldom Scene “Something In the Wind” Act Four
– Nora Brown “Jenny Put the Kettle On” (trad) Long Time Gone
– The Osborn Brothers “Ruby Are You Mad at Your Man?”
– Lucky Four “Get to Leave” from the Norwegian film Happy, Happy
He’s not ‘holdin’: The brilliant John Hartford with buddy Norman Blake
HOUR TWO: Thought You Were Holdin’
– John Hartford “Steamboat Whistle Blues” Areo Plain 1971
– John Hartford “I’m Thought You Were Holdin'” The Walnut Valley Spring Thing, 1971
– Tim O’Brien & Kathy Mattea “Gentle On My Mind” (Hartford) A Tribute to John Hartford, 2000
– Bill Monroe “Cotton-eyed Joe” (live) Bill Monroe and his Bluegrass Boys
– Emmylou & Nash Ramblers “Walls of Time” At the Ryman 1990
– Hazel Dickens & Alice Girard “The Long Black Veil” (Marijohn Wilken) Who’s Knocking? 1965
– Nirvana “Where Did You Sleep Last Night (aka “In the Pines”) MTV Unplugged 1993
– The Stanley Brothers “O, Death” Hymns of the Cross, 1964
– Hurray for the Riff Raff “Blue Ridge Mountains” Small Town Heroes 2015
– The Soggy Bottom Boys “Man of Constant Sorrow” from the film O Brother, Where Art Thou
“These boys is not white. Hell, they ain’t even old-timey. ” – Homer Stokes
– Pure Prairie League “Falling In and Out of Love / Amie” (Fuller) Bustin’ Out 1972
-Jimmy Martin & the Nitty Gritty Dirt Band “The Grand Ol’ Opry Song” Will the Circle Be Unbroken 1972
-The Dillards “The Darlin Boys” Best of the Darlin Boys 2011
-Dillard & Clark “Train Leaves Here This Morning” The Fantastic Expedition of Dillard & Clark 1969
-Alison Kraus & Union Station “Too Late to Cry” Too Late to Cry 1992
HOUR THREE: Parting, Psalms and Laundry Room
-Doc Watson “My Blue Eyed Jane (J Rodgers) [playing under reading of song credits]
– Old And In The Way “Midnight Moonlight” (P Rowan) Old And In The Way 1975
– Old And In The Way “Old And In The Way” (D Grisman) Old And In The Way 1975
-Muleskinner “Dark Hollow” (Bill Browning) Muleskinner, 1973
– Old And In The Way “Wild Horses” (Jagger-Richards) Old And In The Way 1975
– Bela Fleck with Chris Thile “Psalm 136” My Bluegrass Heart 2021
– John Hartford “The Eve of Parting” from the 2018 Greta Gerwig film Ladybird,
– Don MacLean “Love O Love” (traditional) Playin’ Favorites, 1973
– The Avett Brothers “Laundry Room” I And Love You 2009
-Don MacLean “Bill Cheatham / Ol’ Joe Clark” (traditional) Playin’ Favorites, 1973
– Del McCoury “1952 Vincent Black Lightning” (R Thompson)
– Grisman & Garcia “Shady Grove” (traditional) Shady Grove 1996
-Dolly Parton “Cash on the Barrelhead” (Charlie & Ira Louvin) The Grass Is Blue 1999
PROGRAM NOTES
The traditional song “Wish My Baby Was Born” has been collected from all over Britain, Ireland and North America. The song most likely originated in England in the early 1600s.
Roy Acuff recorded his first version of “Freight Train Blues” in Chicago on October 21, 1936, with his group, billed as “Roy Acuff and His Crazy Tennesseeans”. Acuff simulated train whistle. Dobro player Clell Summey performed the slide guitar fills that run throughout the song.
“Where Did You Sleep Last Night?” (performed by Grunge band Nirvana), also known as “In The Pines”, “My Girl”, “Hey Girl”, or “Black Girl”, is a traditional American folk song dating back to at least the 1870s. The song originated in the Southern Appalachia.
- Craig Fuller wrote and sang their first hit “Amie”. While song was a hit, Fuller had to face trial for charges of draft evasion in Kentucky. But before conscientious objector status could be arranged, he was sentenced to six months in jail and forced to leave Pure Prairie League in February of 1973 and RCA dropped the band.
At the time, Fuller was not known to suffer from “bone spurs.” - Happy, Happy (Norwegian: “Sykt lykkelig”) is a 2010 Norwegian comedy film directed by Anne Sewitsky. The film was selected as the Norwegian entry for the Best Foreign Language Film at the 84th Academy Awards
- Psalm 136 is a hymn of thanksgiving celebrated for its rhythmic, repetitive refrain: “for his steadfast love endures forever” (repeated in every single one of its 26 verses). I would add “rhythmic, repetitive,” much like Bluegrass!