Acoustic Disc
2000
Tone Poems III
About This Album
Tone Poems 3 follows in the tradition of David Grisman's two previous Tone Poems albums, featuring vintage instruments and the musical styles for which they were designed. As this project was designed to show off slide and resophonic instruments, Grisman doesn't stick to just the mandolin. In addition to various steel and slide mandolins, the session leader plays tenor guitar and guitar with Mike Auldridge and Bob Brozman, two of the resophonic guitar's most eminent players. A different set of antique instruments is used for each song, and the vintage of the instruments progresses in roughly chronological order. The type of music, then, also develops from track to track. Initially, the album features Hawaiian-style songs like "Moonlight Bay" or once popular Tin Pan Alley tunes like "Whispering" that may have been played in a Hawaiian manner in the '20s. But as the trio starts working with post-Depression era instruments, songs such as "Limehouse Blues" and "Just Joshin'" show the influence of the blues and country genres that eventually began to employ steel-slide sounds. By the end of the record, the band plays some quite modern material, like the original "New Steal," a dirty, blues-heavy stomp.
Track List (try tracks 4,6 and 10)

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