Product Description

Red Smiley & The Bluegrass Cut-Ups

This recording is the first of three LPs that Red and his Blue Grass Cut-Ups made for Rural Rhythm in the years immediately after the split. After his TV show was cancelled in March 1968, Red retired briefly before signing on with Don Reno and Bill Harrell in 1970. They performed and recorded together, and were in the middle of a tour when Red began suffering mild heart-attacks in 1971. Later that year, he was taken ill during a flu epidemic, and died on January 2, 1972, at the age of 47.

Red’s Bluegrass Cut-Ups comprised bassist John Palmer, banjoist Billy Edwards, Tater Tate on fiddle, and Gene Burrows on mandolin. Red generously shared solo space and let his young sidemen step up to the mic. “Oh! Monah” is a pop song that bandleader Ted Weems cowrote and recorded in 1931. “Roll on, Buddy” had been recorded by the Monroe Brothers in the 1930s, and many times before that. No one, though, is sure where it originated. The Monroes also popularized “Darling Corey,” although again no one knows its origin. Usually treated as a breakdown, “Shady Grove” was based on a nursery rhyme, “Fly around My Pretty Little Miss,” that crossed the ocean with the first settlers.

The great black songster Huddie Ledbetter, a.k.a. Leadbelly, popularized “Take This Hammer,” a song he’d probably heard in the Texas prisons. During the 1960s, it became a folk revival classic. Turning to songs of Appalachian descent, we have “900 Miles,” another immemorial song that became a folk revival favorite. It sounds ominously redolent of other murder ballads, like “The Banks of the Ohio.” The close harmony on the choruses is exquisite. If Red Smiley schooled his young accompanists, he schooled them well. “Short Life of Trouble” was written or adapted by blind songster Dick Burnett. “In The Pines” is one of the great unsettling classics of American music, a song that has crossed all boundaries from Doc Walsh’s 1926 recording to Kurt Cobain’s haunting coda to his Unplugged appearance. In between, it has been recorded by Leadbelly, the Sir Douglas Quintet, Bill Monroe, and even became a 1964 hit for a Britpop group, the Four Pennies. Folklorists agree that it was probably cobbled together from several nineteenth century Appalachian songs. The “in the pines” refrain is one of the most evocative in American music.

And of course, like every good bluegrass show, this set includes some hymns. The vintage gospel classic “Somebody Touched Me” is a song that Bob Dylan often includes in his shows, and one that probably comes from African American sacred music, as does “Working on a Building.”

There is deep knowledge and true love of the old music embodied here. Red knew the value of these songs, and he is part of the chain by which they’re passed down to us and future generations. Truly music for the ages.
Colin Escott

1.  ROLL ON BUDDY (1:35)
2.  SUMMERTIME IS PAST AND GONE (1:59)
3.  BIG SANDY (1:00)
4.  TAKE THIS HAMMER (1:57)
5.  WRECK OF THE OLD NO. 9 (2:41)
6.  LET THE CHURCH ROLL ON (1:54)
7.  SHORT LIFE OF TROUBLE (2:30)
8.  SHADY GROVE (1:17)
9.  LITTLE MAGGIE (1:48)
10.  900 MILES (1:33)
11.  SILVER BELLS (1:47)
12.  OH ! MONAH (1:50)
13.  TUPELO COUNTY JAIL (2:02)
14.  BLACK EYED SUSAN (1:15)
15.  FALLEN LEAF (2:33)
16.  SOMETHING GOT HOLD OF ME (2:29)
17.  LITTLE BIRDIE (1:52)
18.  IN THE PINES (2:31)
19.  DARLIN’ COREY (1:18)
20.  WORKING ON A BULDING (1:57)
21.  SOMEBODY TOUCHED ME (2:35)

Musicians:

RED SMILEY – Guitar, Lead Vocal
BILLY EDWARDS – Banjo
CLARENCE “TATER” TATE – Fiddle, Vocal
GENE BURRIS – Mandolin, Guitar, Vocal
JOHN PALMER – Acoustic Bass

Album Produced by Lee Sutton
Album Arranged by Uncle Jim O’Neal
Reissue Producer: Sam Passamano, II
Mastered for this CD by Sammy Passamano, III

For free catalog of Country, Bluegrass Gospel and Folk music call (800) 776-8742 or write to:
Rural Rhythm Records
P.O. Box 750
Mt. Juliet, TN 37122