Fiddle Breakdown - 20 Instrumental Favorites

Best of genre, a must have for your country collection.:
If you like classic country or fiddle music, I highly recommend this title. You will find outstanding selections for fiddle, banjo, string guitar, and steel guitar. Natural Bridge Blues (track three) has wonderful guitar picking probably by Red Smiley. Track seven, stomping with Reno, features great fiddling from Buck Ryan with Don Reno picking guitar and nice work from Tom Kiley on steel guitar. The liner notes states that the album contains examples of western swing, contest fiddling, and many bluegrass standards. I have listened to modern bluegrass and this album sounds more like classic country than bluegrass. There are no vocals and thankfully no rock-style drums that are the bane of modern country music. My original album had lots of surface noise. This CD solves that problem and brings out the wonderful bass guitar, played by Jerry McCoury, that was barely audible on the original album which had very narrow groove spacing. Although the album has twenty selections, all of the songs are very good and there is no filler material. Originally released as an album by Buck Ryan, the CD now features Reno and Smiley because of their name recognition. This is one of those rare albums that really merits five stars. Music Footnote: Track 18, In the Pines, was also covered by the rock group Nirvana in the early 1990's.

What a fiddler (and unforgettable personality) Buck Ryan was !:
Playing Time - 40:02 -- With over 50 years in business, Rural Rhythm Records has built a catalog that connects many dots from past to present. Since its 1955 creation, Rural Rhythm has released hundreds of classic performances by many legendary bluegrass and old-time musicians such as J.E. Mainer, Don Reno, Red Smiley, Mac Wiseman, Vassar Clements, Hylo Brown, Bill Harrell, Jim Eanes, and many others. This album is part of that archival catalog. The label owes its Arcadia, California start to Uncle Jim O'Neal. whose vision was to release the music of many top bluegrass and old-time musicians in the 1950-70s, seeking success where Starday had failed by producing records of limited appeal by lesser known, albeit talented, musicians. Produced by Lee Sutton (the same visionary who captured the music of the legendary J.E. Mainer), this album captured some of the consistently high quality work of Red Smiley and his band working with Buck Ryan, "world champion fiddler." This album was originally released in 1971 and called "Fiddling Buck Ryan" (RR-244). He is backed by Don Reno (banjo, lead guitar), Red Smiley (guitar), Bill Harrell (guitar), Jerry McCoury (bass), Tom Kiley (steel guitar), and Jim Ebert (piano). There are drums in the mix, but they are not credited on the CD jacket. With tunes like "Whispering" and "Red's Virginia Waltz," the tunes are not all breakdowns either. "Fiddling Around" is a rag that shows why Buck won many fiddle contests like the Natl. Hillbilly Music Contest in Warrenton, Va. Buck Ryan lived from 1925-1982. He started playing pro in Virginia about 1940. His first band, Salt & Peanuts, was on WSVA in Harrisonburg, Va. With Lee Moore & Toby Stroud, they played on the WWVA Jamboree in Wheeling, W.V. He also played the Old Dominion Barn Dance in the mid-50s in Richmond. From 1956-60, he played with Jimmy Dean's Texas Wildcats, and then went with The Yates Bros. and the Clinch Mountain Ramblers (Wayne Yates, Bill Yates, Bill Harrell, Smiley Hobbs). In the early-60s, he was part of Bill Harrell's Virginians, before going with Reno, Harrell and the Tennessee Cut-Ups. If you ever saw Buck Ryan play, you'll know that he had an unforgettable charisma, poise and smile. Now, we'll just have to imagine that as we listen to this archival material. Don Reno & Red Smiley, of course, were one of the pioneering first-generation bluegrass bands, very popular and influential throughout the 50s and 60s, but never as commercially successful as Flatt and Scruggs or Bill Monroe. Red Smiley brought his new group, the Bluegrass Cutups, to Rural Rhythm, with Tater Tate in Reno's place. It's fun to hear Reno taking some lead guitar breaks on this Buck Ryan fiddle album. As part of Rural Rhythm's archive, Uncle Jim O'Neal liked to offer 20 tracks on the LPs originally issued. For CD, the music's been remastered. Liner notes are included from Barry Willis, author of "America's Music: Bluegrass." "Fiddle Breakdown" is a great introduction to Buck Ryan and a classic band backing him up, as well as taking a few breaks. Piano, drums and steel were included to give the music more of a commercial sound. Don't expect elaborate arrangements or the same level of clarion studio recording quality we hear today. Rather, just enjoy and relive a classic bluegrass sound of yesteryear. Most of the cuts span about 2 minutes apiece. Just enjoy and relive a classic bluegrass sound of yesteryear. (Joe Ross, staff writer, Bluegrass Now)