Welcome to a summit meeting of folk and country music!In this album, two of the leading instrumental wizards of American music, banjoist Earl Scruggs and guitarist Doc Watson, meet for a historic session.
As on any mountaintop, the atmosphere is heady, exhilarating and might even cause a bit of dizziness to those not accustomed to the altitude. But it is filled with high spirits and high jinks.
This album of folk and country instrumentals has much in it to commend it to even those unfortunate persons who may have never enjoyed these two viable forms of musical Americana. A sense of freedom and lightness, an air of jazz-like improvisation and a splash of instrumental virtuosity combine in STRICTLY INSTRUMENTAL to make a memorable listening experience for music-lovers of any sort.
Of course, to those who know the country field well, the album will be more of a delight than a surprise. They will have already learned that this is no simple, three-chord style of playing. They will know that many of the stereotyped attitudes toward the ''limits'' of country music have been unjust and prejudicial. The devotees will have experienced previous examples of the artistry of Lester Flatt, Earl Scruggs and Doc Watson and be overjoyed that the titans finally got together.
The first meeting between Earl Scruggs and Doc Watson took place about two years before this recording. Earl and his wife Louise were visiting the mountain cabin of their good friends Dr. Nat Winston and his wife Betty in Western North Carolina. Earl, long a fan of Doc's recordings, dropped in unannounced around Christmastide on Doc at his home in Deep Gap, North Carolina, to say "howdy.'' It was the beginning of a friendship close in spirit if not in actual physical contact.
Some months later the musicians met again, in that unlikeliest of all centers for country and folk music, Manhattan. Doc was playing at the basement coffeehouse, The Gaslight, and Earl dropped in again, to say hello and to listen in wonderment to the dazzling flights of Doc's fingers on the guitar strings.
The Scruggs household in Madison, Tennessee, outside Nashville, had enjoyed ''visits'' from Doc Watson long before he ever got there. The visits were in the form of his recordings on the Vanguard and Folkways labels. The idea of a joint recording session took root and the details were worked out. Sessions were set for September and October, 1966. Doc arrived in Madison to prepare for the sessions and for appearances on Flatt and Scruggs' television show. But un- expected illness forced a delay.
Doc had an emergency appendectomy and spent three weeks recuperating in a hospital, Earl flew Doc home to Johnson City, Tennessee, but the stars were determined to go ahead with the sessions as soon as Doc had rested up from his bout of illness.
Finally, the day for recording arrived -- December 12, 1966. Assembled in the famous old Columbia Studio on 16th Avenue South in Nashville, the studio that had given birth to "the Nashville Sound,'' were Earl's longtime partner, Lester Flatt, who picked guitar; Grady Martin, guitar; Charlie McCoy, harmonica; Buddy Harmon on snare drum (an instrument to be whispered among traditionalists in country music). Also in the session, of course, were some other stalwarts from Lester and Earl's band, The Foggy Mountain Boys: Jake Tullock, bass; Buck Graves on Dobro (steel guitar fretted in the Hawaiian manner) and Paul Warren on fiddle.
Lester, Earl and Doc have remarked that they never enjoyed a recording date more in their lives, Doc stayed at the Scruggs' home and a fast friendship was cemented. The rapport and the easy "conversation" between the banjo player and guitarist are among the outstanding qualities of STRICTLY INSTRUMENTAL.
The performances speak eloquently for themselves but a few things should be kept in mind. These are actual sounds from Earl, Lester and Doc and their supporting musicians. Nothing is speeded up, and nothing is doctored by studio engineers. It may surprise you but this is a true recording with only the magic element of virtuosity to make you doubt your own ears.
Pick Along starts off the proceedings with the brightness and the fluid interplay of instruments that characterize the whole album. Doc's first solo points to the amazing fleetness of his guitar style, a style that some commentators have seen as a translation of the fiddle sound to the guitar. Nothing to It is a romping, strutting showpiece that Doc Watson wrote and has previously recorded. Evelina was written by Buck Graves and Jake Lambert, presumably a tribute to Buck's wife, Evelyn. It begins with a delicate, nearly music-box sound, plays around with a fragment suggesting the old vaudeville tune, ''Ta-Ra-Ra-Boom-Ti-Yay,'' and sails on its wispy way.
A modern, jazzy feeling permeates Jazzing, another indication that the best of musicians are never content to stay in one idiom alone. It's too much pleasure and too great a challenge not to mix things up a bit. The tune was written by Lester and Earl, as a pick-along giving each of the instrumentalists a break in which to shine. The Tammy in Tammy's Song is Lester Flatt's grand-daughter, and the flying fingers are mostly Earl's and Doc's.
On the second side, folk fans will recognize John Hardy Was a Desperate Little Man as an old Carter Family ballad. Lonesome Ruben is another famous old banjo-fiddle tune, here rounded out with the other instruments. Its minor cast catches the modal flavor of old-time mountain banjo. Spanish Two-Step, an old Bob Wills tune, comes from the treasury of Western swing music. Careless Love is another antique folk tune, done in anything but an antique form here. This memorable album ends with Bill Cheatham, an old fiddle tune with all the fingers, picks and bows flying.
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