FOGHORN STRING BAND - REAP WHAT YOU SOW
No Label
No Number
The Foghorn String Band roared from the hotbed of old-time music in Portland, Oreg., to national prominence (for old-time music) while touring with Dirk Powell in support of the mountain music that Dirk produced for the movie Cold Mountain. This is their second disc and it contains the same hard-driving dance music and old-time country that was on the first.
They jump out of the gate with "Georgia Railroad" and things don't settle down much for the rest of the ride. The infinitely small liner notes claim that this recording was done with one microphone. In this age of overly slick, highly produced music, this is easy to believe. This band has the power that mountain bluegrass bands like the Mountain Ramblers of Galax, Va., once had. The Reverend P.T. Grover, Jr., drives this band with his threefinger style that owes much to the likes of Shannon Grayson and Snuffy Jenkins.
Caleb Klauder's mandolin teams up with Sammy Lind's fiddle to make powerful statements on the fiddle tunes. "Best Timber" and "Five Miles From Ellum Wood" drive like a fully loaded freight train. It's on "Lonesome Road Blues" and the threequarter time ballads that these guys start sounding like an old-time bluegrass band gathered around the microphone on WPAQ or some other old-time radio station. They do not have the vocal finesse of the very best of the mountain bluegrass from over the years, but they are a long shot better than many of those mountain broadcasts.
The balance of this one mic arrangement works better than one might imagine. Brian Bardonas' bass is a little too up front in the mix, and Kevin Sandri's guitar is not quite as full as it could be and neither are the vocals on the more raucous material. But for a live band sound, this recording is very well done. To capture the power and energy of this band in the typical oft-overdubbed studio atmosphere would be impossible. Considering the tradeoffs inherent in this deal, we are the winners. You will not find a more high energy recording anywhere. The great bonus is that this band is good and a whole lot of fun to listen to as well. (Foghorn String Band, P.O. Box 2556, Portland, OR 97214, www.foghornstringband.com.)RCB
