Fine Live Album From Late In Bill Monroe's Career
Todd A. Gracyk | Petaluma, CA USA | 05/03/2002
(4 out of 5 stars)
"There are presently 4 Bill Monroe live albums available which were recorded late in his career, and the one I like best is "Live - Volume One." "Live - Volume One" is a 2 CD album taken from concerts in June of 1990. The Blue Grass Boys at this time were Tom Ewing, Tater Tate, Blake Williams, and Billy Rose (a good band, not a great band). These recordings were captured by a documentary film crew using state of the art equipment. For being relatively late in his career, Monroe is in top form here, both vocally and musically. The material is mostly Monroe standards along with a few lesser heard titles. There is a nice mix of uptempo songs, ballads, gospel songs, and instrumentals. There is also a fine rendition of that extremely popular song "Happy Birthday."This 2 CD album comes with an excellent booklet with 18 pages of text by Larry Nager (some of the text refers to material that will be presented in the second volume of this series). There are also many photographs interspersed with the text."