caney creek

Description

The Dillards Live in Burlington, Iowa June 1980 at the Burlington Steamboat Days. This recording is from an old reel to reel tape I made in 1980. There is unfortunately a high pitched hum that runs through it, though it's virtually obscured when the band is rocking. I think what I like most about this concert is that whether intended or not, to me the selection of songs forms a story, a tale of rural, 19th Century American life. Not some simplistic, everything is wonderful, family values thing, but a realistic portrait full of humor and drama, religion, drinking and life as it was, not an idealized 21st Century revisionist history. Just listen to the lyrics and you may see what I mean. It almost plays like a concept album, a novel in musical form. The recording is from a broadcast on Iowa Public Television in the fall of 1980. I made the recording by plugging a guitar cable directly into the little earphone jack in the side of a tiny portable black and white TV and into a big old Webcor tape recorder, all I had at the time in the long ago time before DVDs, VHS or any of those wonderful inventions. I expect the original video tape of this no longer exists, I certainly haven't seen it in over 30 years. I offer this sound recording despite the poor quality only because of its rare and historic nature. The Dillards were at the time winding down from their heyday in which they had been one of the most innovative musical groups of the late 60s and early 70s during which time they were the first Bluegrass band to plug in and go electric creating such masterpieces as Wheatstraw Suite, Copperfields, Roots and Branches and Tribute To The American Duck, all of which you can and should buy on CD. I'm not even sure who the personnel were in this version of the band, though it definitely included Rodney Dillard on guitar and lead vocals and Dean Webb on mandolin. Beyond that I'm not sure. I believe Mitch Jayne was on bass, but I'm not even sure of that, or who was playing banjo or drums. If anyone can help us out on this it would be appreciated. I was also sure this was from the summer of 1979, which is what I had written on the old reel tape box. But on searching the web I found a listing of the Burlington Steamboat Days and could only find the Dillards listed as having played in June 1980. Still, it may have been 1979 unless my memory has completely failed me, which it may have in my dotage. Here's a listing of the songs: Video part 1 1 Walking In Jerusalem 02 Let The River Roll On 03 Dooley Video part 2 04 Ebo Walker 05 Annabel Lee 06 The Charlotte Breakdown Video part 3 07 Caney Creek 08 The Whiskey Before Breakfast 09 Old Cane Press Video part 4 10 We Can Work It Out 11 Dueling Banjos 12 The Old Home Place Video part 5 13 Somebody Touched Me Video part 6 14 The Biggest Whatever 15 You've Got To Be Strong Annabel Lee, taken from the Edgar Allan Poe poem, is a true rarity, its only recording being on the long extinct Dillards vs. the L.A. Time Machine album which has never been issued on CD and nobody has had the courtesy to upload to YouTube. The band was in rare form, hotter than a pistol on this long ago hot summer Iowa night on the Mississippi, showing their unique blend of Bluegrass, Rock and Country. In many ways the Dillards presaged the movement of Country from its traditions to it modern form of Country-Rock, but at the same time these guys sounded authentic, because they were, not prepackaged faux-guys in cowboy hats. If you've only ever seen or heard them on the Andy Griffith Show, you saw only the tip of the iceberg. The real band was a major mover, if not in sales, in the influence it cast over bands like The Byrds, Buffalo Springfield and many more. Enjoy. BTW, I've tried removing that annoying hum in the video but had no success, if anyone wants to give it a try, any improvements to the sound quality would be great. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Dillards http://www.the-dillards.com/