Discover Top Posts Tagged with #earl jam

Song Review: Tony Trischka feat. Billy Strings - “Gentle on My Mind”

Blanketed in talent but covered with an overly busy arrangement, Tony Trischka’s version of “Gentle on My Mind” is not among the essential renditions of John Hartford’s best-known composition.

Working alongside Billy Strings, who’s featured on guitar and vocals, banjoist Trischka seemed to struggle to make room for the co-billed Strings, fiddler Michael Cleveland, mandolinist Sam Bush and himself to solo. Yet, they do with typical flair, making the song more one of parts than an ensemble piece.

The result is slightly awkward, through producer Béla Fleck took pains to leave things as simple as possible behind the console.

Following Trischka’s version of “Lost John” with the SteelDrivers, “Gentle on My Mind” is the track that announces the March 13 arrival of Earl Jam 2. Read Sound Bites’ review of 2024’s Earl Jam here.

Grade card: Tony Trischka feat. Billy Strings - “Gentle on My Mind” - B-

1/16/26

#Youtube #tony trischka #billy strings #john hartford #gentle on my mind #earl jam #earl jam 2 #sam bush #michael cleveland #béla fleck #the steeldrivers

#earl Jam #Eddie Vedder

Song Review: Tony Trischka’s Earl Jam - “Kentucky Bullfight”

Sound Bites couldn’t tell ya what a Kentucky bullfight might look like - he’s from backward Oiho after all - but in Tony Trischka's capable hands, “Kentucky Bullfight” sounds right fine.

Taking the rotating-guests concept of his recent Earl Jam LP to the stage, the banjoist was captured on video performing the “Bullfight” with assistance from fiddler Brittany Haas, guitarist Micheal Daves and bassist Jared Engel.

The music crests and breaks like waves as first Hass, then Daves and, finally, Trischka step toward the mic to solo on their unplugged instruments. They’re not a regular band, but, if “Kentucky Bullfight” is any indication, they’re as tight as just about any working band out there at the moment.

Grade card: Tony Trischka’s Earl Jam - “Kentucky Bullfight” - A

9/20/24

#Youtube #tony trischka #earl jam #brittany haas #hawktail #punch brothers #crooked still #michael daves #jared engel

Tony Trischka - Earl Jam (2024) … a tribute to Earl Scruggs …

#tony trischka #earl jam #musiconspotify #Spotify

Album Review: Tony Trischka - Earl Jam

Tony Trischka had no problem recruiting veterans and newcomers, traditionalists and modernists, to help bring his Earl Jam to life.

And that’s not surprising, considering Trischka built the arrangements around transcriptions of Earl Scruggs solos recorded during private jam sessions with John Hartford in the 1980s and ’90s that Trischka received during COVID-19 quarantine.

Billy Strings’ status as bluegrass’ future is confirmed as he leads a band including banjoists Trischka and Béla Fleck, mandolinist Sam Bush, fiddler Michael Cleveland and others on the LP-opening “Brown’s Ferry Blues.”

Later on, Bush supports another youngster, sharing vocal and instrumental duties with Molly Tuttle on “Dooley.” Yet another young voice in the old-time genre, Sierra Ferrell, is super-present with her voice from another time, fronting three of Earl Jam’s 15 cuts including “San Antonio Rose” and a stunning rendition of “Amazing Grace” with the McCrary Sisters adding support and whose reprise closes the album.

Veterans get involved, too, as Del McCoury and (most of) his eponymous Band take charge on “Roll on Buddy” and former Pure Prairie Leaguer and current Eagle Vince Gill sings the mournful “Bury Me Beneath the Willow.”

Vocalist Lindsay Lou; fiddlers Darol Anger, Brownyn Keith-Hynes, Brittany Haas and Stuart Duncan; mandolinist Dominick Leslie and Jacob Jolliff; guitarist Bryan Sutton; and others make cameos. Trischka, meanwhile, recreates Scruggs’ solos exactly as they unfolded on that lost-and-found recording to create a hybridized LP where sum and parts are equally impactful.

Grade card: Tony Trischka - Earl Jam - A-

8/15/24

Lecture 21: “Rockin’ In The Free World” - Pearl Jam with Neil Young (Live in Toronto, 2011): Neil Young’s last album of the 1980s, Freedom (1989) represented an important comeback for the musician. His songs on Freedom, especially “Rockin’ in the Free World,” a critique of the George H.W. Bush administration and a social commentary on the ills of society, represented a sound and a tone that borrowed from his classic years of the 1970s, yet presented a harder and more aggressive sound. This is Pearl Jam covering “Rockin’ in the Free World” at a Toronto concert in 2011 when none other than the Godfather of Grunge, their good friend Neil Young, joins them on stage. Pearl Jam had played on Young’s 1995 album Mirrorball. Check out the guitar jam starting around the 5:00 minute mark! (after intro., move to 3:40)