Old Mountaineer is one of those fantastic, yet obscure Monroe tunes. I stole it (like so many things) off of Mike Compton. Interestingly, I learned it off of the bootlegs from a house concert in Madison, WI (before I moved here) and have since become good friends with Bobby and Lori, who had hosted that show. If you don’t have that show, you should… but you can find the tune on Stomp as well.
Sidebar: while I’m on it, I’l throw out a quick rant for bootlegs… Some musicians feel that bootlegs cut into their bottom line and/or don’t care for folks to hear their “off” shows. I understand these opinions and have no problem with it… except that I disagree with them. My favorite shows are live. Live performances offer a true look into a musician. The allow me to hear tunes that they’re working into a set or are playing off the cuff. Mistakes provide more depth in understanding their playing. Eg. how one handles a mistake in music, like in life, tells a lot about folks. Please, please, PLEASE… allow live recordings where applicable. When I listen to your show I will have already bought your records (which is why I’m listening to your live show) or open to checking you out (and if I like you I will almost certainly buy your record). ‘Nuff said… Okay, rant over…Old Mountaineer
Sun, September 23rd 2007
4 Comments » RSS feed for comments on this post.
Steve in SC writes:
I agree 100%. The loss of Bluegrass Box made me mildly homicidal. Check out spps.org for similar offerings. My current favorite, recently discovered by that site is the Earl Brothers. Serious high-lonesome.I purchased both of their studio albums as a result. Amazing how that worked.
Comment - September 23, 2007 @ 12:56 pmSteve in SC writes:
Just wanted to add-I currently have Compton and Long 7/19/2004, 7/24/2004, and 2/19/2005. Is this one of those shows? I’d be curious if this house show was posted around somewhere if not.
Comment - September 23, 2007 @ 1:07 pmdasspunk writes:
It’s the 7/24/04 show… Steve you mention spps.org? Saint Paul Public Schools has shows? :) MAN, I miss Bluegrassbox.
Comment - September 23, 2007 @ 1:16 pmSteve in SC writes:
oops…make that thespps.org. Sorry about that. Lots of old recordings there done by Tut Taylor when he was still with Hartford. Norman Blake is also well represented there.
Comment - September 23, 2007 @ 1:22 pm