Country Songs, Old and New
Eddie Adcock , Charlie Waller , John Duffey , The Country Gentlemen
1960
Folkways Records
The Country Gentlemen were the godfathers of progressive bluegrass, a band that looked pretty trad on the surface but started to incorporate pop and rock elements early on. Their 1960 debut album sounds entirely straight-ahead at first: classic material like “Drifting Too Far from the Shore,” “Come All You Fair and Tender Ladies,” a rollicking “Paul and Silas,” etc. But that arrangement of “Under the Double Eagle” would have raised a few purists’ eyebrows, and their take on “Honky Tonk Rag” was pretty… rocking. This was all a harbinger of things to come.
Who also suggested
- Nell Robinson
- Scroggins & Rose
- Bradford Lee Folk & the Bluegrass Playboys
- Martha Spencer
- The Deadly Gentlemen
- Waldemar Bastos
- Jim Lauderdale
- Ralph Stanley
- Sarah Jarosz
- Blue Highway