Old Ties Tracks
1. Spanish Fandango
2. Church St. Blues
3. Sleepy Eyed Joe/Indian Creek
4. O'Malley's Tune [#]
5. Fifty Miles of Elbow Room
6. Down Home Summertime Blues
7. Blind Dog
8. Fiddler's Dram/Whiskey Before Breakfast
9. Old Ties
10. Lost Indian
11. Ginseng Sullivan
12. OBC #3
13. Prettiest Little Girl in the Country
14. Uncle
15. Bristol in the Bottle
16. Billy Gray
17. Fields of November
18. Gonna Lay Down My Old Guitar
19. Randall Collins/Done Gone
Old Ties Review
With a spot on the O Brother soundtrack and Down from the Mountain tour, singer and multi-instrumentalist Norman Blake was introduced to a host of roots music fans for the first time. Yet anyone with even a passing interest in old-time and bluegrass music surely knew of Blake 30 years prior to the turn-of-the-century bluegrass boom. In addition to his many fine solo recordings, Blake has played with names like Dylan, Cash, and Kristofferson. He also appeared on 1972's Will the Circle Be Unbroken, the O Brother of its day. This 19-track compilation cherry picks from his Rounder and Flying Fish albums dating back to 1972 and offers a mix of traditional songs and originals, instrumentals (both delicate and hot-picked), and vocals, solos, duos, trios, and quartets. As such it showcases the full range of Blake's talents: an uncanny blend of blistering speed, unerring taste, and rhythmic precision on guitar, an endearing, understated singing style, and a deep appreciation for beautiful melodies. --Marc Greilsamer
You can be grateful, I suppose, that the irrestistible "Down Home Summertime Blues" -- surely the most purely joyous song the often dour Blake has ever written -- is here, along with the gorgeous take on the venerable guitar piece "Spanish Fandago" and the chilling faux Western ballad "Billy Gray." There's the elegaic, evocative "The Fields of November," not to mention "Uncle," Blake's attestation to the fact that Bill Monroe was not the only musician who learned from a fiddling uncle.
A talented musician who knows what he wants to do and has stuck to it over three decades of solo and duo recording, Blake by now has compiled a massive oeuvre. Just about all of it is good, and some of it is better. Old Ties, which documents both, has something for the Blake novice and the grizzled fan, and everybody between.