Grass Roots: The Best Of New Grass Revival CD

Unlike the single-disc sets New Grass Anthology (1990) and The Best of New Grass Revival (1994), the double-CD Grass Roots: The Best of New Grass Revival does not restrict itself to the group's major-label catalog of EMI/Capitol recordings, circa 1986-1989, but instead also licenses tracks dating back to the band's first recordings in 1972. There are selections from the debut album, The Arrival of the New Grass Revival, originally released on Starday Records; from the Flying Fish LPs Fly Through the Country, Barren County, and Commonwealth; and from the Sugar Hill collections Live and On the Boulevard; in addition to material drawn from the EMI/Capitol albums New Grass Revival, Hold to a Dream, and Friday Night in America. There are also eight previously unreleased tracks, five of them live performances (ten of the set's 35 tracks are live). That all adds up to nearly two and a half hours of New Grass Revival spread across 17 years, drawn from the group's entire recorded output. Although they were praised and criticized for their unorthodox approach to bluegrass, much of this music is in a traditional style, that is, when the band isn't covering the Beatles, Marvin Gaye, the Impressions, Jerry Lee Lewis, or Bob Marley & the Wailers (or adding a reggae rhythm to some other tune). But even at their most eclectic, the bandmembers remain an amazing bunch of pickers, whether in the early lineup of Sam Bush, John Cowan, Courtney Johnson, and Curtis Burch, or the later one, in which Pat Flynn and Béla Fleck replaced Johnson and Burch. Grass Roots: The Best of New Grass Revival makes an excellent summation of their career. ~ William Ruhlmann

New Grass Revival: Curtis Burch, Jeff Hanna, Pat Flynn (vocals, guitar); Béla Fleck, Courtney Johnson (vocals, banjo); Sam Bush (vocals, mandolin, fiddle); Bob Carpenter (vocals, accordion); John Cowan, Ebo Walker (vocals, bass instrument); Randy Scruggs (guitar); Bill Kenner (mandolin); Roy Huskey Jr., Butch Robins (bass instrument); Kenny Malone (drums, percussion); Jimmie Fadden, Eddie Bayers, Bob Mater, Michael Clemm (drums); Tom Roady (percussion).

Arranger: Edgar Meyer.