Live...Almost!!! | ||||
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Live album by | ||||
Released | 1964 | |||
Venue | The Mecca, Los Angeles | |||
Genre | Bluegrass | |||
Length | 42:00 (approximate) | |||
Label | Elektra | |||
Producer | Jim Dickson | |||
The Dillards chronology | ||||
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Live...Almost!!! is the second album by bluegrass quartet The Dillards, recorded live at The Mecca, Los Angeles, in front of a clearly appreciative audience. The Dillards perform with a lot of spirit, warmth and enjoyment, which seems to have been their usual approach: "There isn't a song that the Dillards do that they don't thoroughly enjoy, and they do them with equal enthusiasm on the back porch, or in concert before five thousand people". [1]
The album contains an equal mixture of traditional songs and ones penned by the band, plus a few cover versions - including "Walkin' Down the Line" by a then up-and-coming young artist: "I don't know how many of you know who Bobby Dylan is, but he's probably done more for folk music or had more influence than anybody. He has a voice that's very much like a dog with its leg caught in barbed wire, but that doesn't matter..." [2]
In addition to some fast bluegrass and slower, more folky songs, the album is full of humour, with Mitch Jayne providing some very witty stories by way of introduction to some of the songs: notably with "Old Blue" (involving outdoor privies, dogs and Joan Baez), and "Pretty Polly" (a song in which a boy "scrags his girlfriend". [3] ) The entertainment continues on "Taters in Sandy Land": "Rodney finally gets to play his harmonica, after I get disgusted and cram it in his mouth endways. What amazes the audience is the fact that he plays it that way, no hands!" [4] Finally in the closing track, "Buckin' mule", Rodney Dillard forgets his words and when prompted to simply make some up, delivers a few verses that really crack up the audience.
Review scores | |
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Source | Rating |
Allmusic | [5] |
The album was originally released in 1964 on Elektra: EKL-265 (mono) and EKS-7265 (stereo).
It was reissued by Elektra in 2001 as a double CD together with their debut album Back Porch Bluegrass .
The Dillards are an American bluegrass and country rock band from Salem, Missouri. The band is notable for introducing bluegrass music into the popular mainstream with their appearance as "The Darlings" on The Andy Griffith Show.
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Back Porch Bluegrass is the debut album by American band the Dillards, released in 1963. "Dooley" and "Duelin' Banjo" were released as singles.
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James Dickson was born in Los Angeles, California, son of a diesel engineer in the United States Navy. He was an avid sailor as a teenager, and enlisted in the United States Army in 1946 before he embarked on a career in the recording industry as a self-taught record producer and band manager. Before producing the first Elektra Records Bluegrass records he produced his first record, an LP on his own label, Vaya. He eventually sold the rights of Lord Buckley's 1955 album Hipsters, Flipsters and Finger Poppin' Daddies, Knock Me Your Lobes to Elektra and it was in print for another 25 years. Jim Dickson was the lone individual behind Elektra Records Los Angeles Bluegrass albums. In 1962 he produced his first bluegrass record for Elektra called Dian and the Greenbriar Boys by the Greenbriar Boys and a Hollywood country singer, Dian James. While working on the collaboration between Greenbriar Boys and Dian James, Dickson discovered the Dillards and with the help of Ralph Rinzler convinced Elektra Records that they were a good Bluegrass group. He went on to produce three of their records, 1963's Back Porch Bluegrass, 1964's Live!!!! Almost!!! and 1965's Pickin' and Fiddlin' which featured fiddler, Byron Berline. Rosenberg notes that Pickin' and Fiddlin' "was unlike any previous bluegrass album; it was an LP of old-time fiddle music played to bluegrass backing." Dickson was behind the first ever recording of a Bob Dylan song by a bluegrass band, The Dillards recording of Bob Dylan's "Walkin' Down the Line" on their 1964 album Live!!!! Almost!!!
Douglas Flint Dillard was an American musician noted for his banjo proficiency and his pioneering participation in late-'60s country rock.
Doug Dillard is an American bluegrass banjo player. In addition to his solo albums and recordings with the Dillards and Dillard & Clark, he has been featured as a performer and composer on numerous albums by other artists.
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