The Bluegrass Breakdown 6/26/26 Playlist and Replay
Tonight on WRIU’s The Bluegrass Breakdown, I’ll be 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 stringed instruments, brilliantly played by hippies and stoners (as John Sebastian wrote) “clean as country water and wild as mountain dew!”
A special thank you to host Glenn Lawrence for allowing me to sit-in while he’s on vacation.
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” (Dolores Silver) Del and the Boys, 2007
– NRBQ “Hit the Hay” (T Adams) Grooves In Orbit, 1983
– Nora Brown “Jenny Put the Kettle On” (trad) Long Time Gone 2021
– Infamous Stringdusters “Jessica” (D Betts) 2017: Undercover Vol. 2
– Leon Russell & New Grass Revival “Jumpin’ Jack Flash” (Jagger-Richards)
– The Seldom Scene “Something In the Wind” Act Four 1979
– Lester Flatt & Earl Scruggs “Roll In My Sweet Baby’s Arms” (Preston Young) Complete Mercury Recordings
– The Osborn Brothers “Ruby Are You Mad at Your Man?” 1956 MGM single
– Lucky Four “Get to Leave” from the 2010 Norwegian film Happy, Happy
– The Soggy Bottom Boys “Man of Constant Sorrow” (D Burnett) from the film O Brother, Where Art Thou
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 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” (B Monroe, P Rowan) 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 (trad, 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” (Alynda Segarra) Small Town Heroes 2015
Alison Krauss circa 1986 in Escoheag, RI with the late Dave Denman and Del McCoury. The Cajun & Bluegrass Festival was founded and produced by the late Chuck Wentworth
– 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” (Hylo Brown) 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: Partings, Psalms and Laundry Room
-Doc Watson “My Blue Eyed Jane” (J Rodgers) Portrait 1987
– 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 McLean “Love O Love” (traditional) Playin’ Favorites, 1973
– The Avett Brothers “Laundry Room” I And Love You 2009
– Don McLean “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
Peter Rowan was a member of Bill Monroe’s Blue Grass Boys from 1964 to 1967, serving as a lead vocalist, rhythm guitarist, and songwriter for the “Father of Bluegrass”, c0-writing the song “Walls of Time” with Monroe.
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. The version played tonight appears in the 1994 film Cold Mountain (executive music producer T-Bone Burnett)
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.
- The actual performers behind The Soggy Bottom Boys in the Coen Brother’s O, Brother Where Art Thou were Dan Tyminski (lead vocal), Harley Allen and Pat Enright (harmonies)
” These boys is not white. Hell, they ain’t even old-timey. ” – Homer Stokes in O, Brother Where Art Thou?
- In 1955, a Philadelphia native named Dolores Silvers submitted the song “Learnin’ the Blues” to Frank Sinatra unsolicited. It became one of the few independently submitted songs he ever recorded and soared to the top of the US charts.
“I’d heard Frank Sinatra sing, but I’d never heard him do this one,” said Del McCoury. “It’s worked out real good. We get a lot of requests for it (but) Frank would turn over in his grave if he heard this version.” - Craig Fuller wrote and sang “Falling In and Out of Love / Amie.” While the song was a hit, Fuller had to face charges of draft evasion in Kentucky. Before conscientious objector status could be arranged, Fuller was sentenced to six months in jail and forced to leave Pure Prairie League in February of 1973. RCA then dropped the band. Fuller was not known to suffer from “bone spurs.”
- Happy, Happy is a 2010 Norwegian dark comedy, selected as the Norwegian entry for the Best Foreign Language Film at the 84th Academy Awards. Director, Anne Sewitsky, used The Lucky Four as a Greek chorus of sorts. Dressed in mismatched suits, they sporadically appeared in the snowy Norwegian landscape to sing zesty gospel and spiritual songs, offering an ironic, often comedic commentary on the crumbling relationships in the film.
- 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.