Get a little distance from a record player that has been taken over by this energetic classic and it will sound something like a solo violin album with some sort of clatter in the background. When another soloist steps out it still sounds somewhat dislocated, as if the pedal steel, electric guitar, or banjo were chiming in from an adjoining bar. It is a combination of the majesty of fiddler Vassar Clements and a rare degree of overfascination on the part of the recording engineers; they are not supposed to get this carried away and would have been better off maintaining a more objective bias in which all the soloists would get the same amount of sonic splendor. The release of this album marks an era in which Nashville sidemen were finally getting their recognition. This is an all-instrumental album in which the idea of a lead vocalist is dispensed with completely. Artists such as Chet Atkins and Charlie McCoy had been making instrumental albums for years, but not with this kind of edge. In that aspect this is a jam that owes more to jazz than the polite country pickers who solo for two bars at time, one eye on their wristwatches. Another Clements album entitled Hillbilly Jazz would follow in due course so this connection is not simply wishful thinking on the part of hipsters. The idea of bestowing glory on background pickers extends beyond granting them a jazzman's acreage of solo space. The photograph on the back cover of this album may have been the first opportunity for country fans to match a face with a name on credits, the idea of actually identifying the sidemen still somewhat of a new thing in the mid-'70s. Players such as Charlie Daniels and John Hartford were bandleaders in their own right and combine brilliantly with session geniuses such as the steel guitarist Doug Jernigan. While there are actually a few vocals here and there, it hardly detracts from an instrumental emphasis in which arranger Millie Clements' combination of acoustic old-timey and more modernistic electric elements is simply perfect. ~ Eugene Chadbourne, Rovi

1		In the Pines
2		Peking Fling
3		Sweet and Sassy
4		Long Way Around
5		Good Woman's Love
6		Night Train
7		Vassillie
8		Kissimmie Kid
9		Mocking Bird
10		Lonesome Fiddle Blues

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