When the Grateful Dead founded their own Grateful Dead Records label in 1973 (along with the subsidiary Round Records for non-Dead projects), they had an incentive to develop a catalog of releases, and it was not surprising that group members' eclectic musical tastes were indulged, among them Jerry Garcia's affection for bluegrass, expressed early on with the release of Old in the Way by his side project of that name. The Good Old Boys' Pistol Packin' Mama is in the same vein, even though Garcia restricts himself to twisting the knobs in the control booth as the album's producer. The group is a combination of old hands and young guns this time around. Banjo player Don Reno of Reno Smiley was at loose ends after Smiley's death in 1972, and fiddler Chubby Wise, a Bill Monroe alumnus, had ended a lengthy association with Hank Snow, so both were available to be recruited for the January 1975 session. So was veteran mandolin player Frank Wakefield, and they were joined by the more youthful devotees, guitarist David Nelson of the New Riders of the Purple Sage and bassist Pat Campbell. Nelson's main band is given reflected glory at the start and finish of the disc, which begins with a cover of Don Gibson's 1968 country hit Ashes of Love, a song also featured on the New Riders' most recent LP, Brujo, and ends with Glendale Train, a John Dawson song from the New Riders' self-titled 1971 debut LP. In between, it's just a picking session with plenty of songs from Reno's repertoire (Long Gone, Banjo Signal, Barefoot Nelly, Don't You Hear Jerusalem Moan) as well as Wise's showcase Too Wise Special. Standards abound, many of them arranged and adapted by Wakefield into the traditional bluegrass format. The Good Old Boys may be an ad hoc outfit put together by acolytes, and thus as much of a tribute band as a formal group, but the picking is fast and precise, and Garcia gets a cleaner, more detailed sound than is typical in the often rushed Nashville sessions devoted to bluegrass. ~ William Ruhlmann, Rovi

1		Ashes of Love
2		Here to Get My Baby Out of Jail
3		Long Gone
4		Dim Lights, Thick Smoke
5		Deep Elem Blues
6		Pistol Packin' Mama
7		Banjo Signal
8		Toy Heart
9		Leave Well Enough Alone
10		Too Wise Special
11		On Top of Old Smokey
12		Barefoot Nelly
13		Don't You Hear Jerusalem Moan
14		Glendale Train