Like many of us, I probably first heard bluegrass on TV: "The Ballad of Jed Clampett", the theme song from "The Beverly Hillbillies". There was some bluegrass sprinkled throughout "The Andy Griffith Show", and then later the movies "Bonnie and Clyde" and "Deliverance". Once in a while on car trips, my wife and I would pick up cheapo cassettes from K-Mart from labels like Starday, King and Gusto featuring bluegrass (and trucker tunes!) So I'd heard bluegrass, but I didn't really hear it until I found "The Bluegrass Album" featuring a bluegrass super-group of younger performers like my man Tony Rice, Bobby Hicks, J.D. Crowe and Doyle Lawson. The songs were all traditional, a mix of Bill Monroe, Lester Flatt and others, along with a gospel song tossed into the mix.
After the success of the first (1981) album, many more followed (5 volumes?) and they naturally called themselves "The Bluegrass Album Band". Listening now with ears a little more travelled, the album sounds a bit homogenized -- nobody singing through their nose or scraping away drunkenly on fiddle -- and I miss the, shall we say, piquant nature of an Uncle Dave Macon or Gid Tanner. But they all are excellent musicians, playing at the top of their game in a traditional setting, with exceptional quality production and sound. This is the album where I went from a curious explorer to a committed fan. From here, it was onto the Skaggs & Rice album and many, many more in the days to follow. Thanks, guys!
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