Dualtone (Red)
2004
The Morning Glory Ramblers
About This Album
It's hard to believe that Morning Glory Ramblers is the first full-length recording by Norman and Nancy Blake in eight years. Certainly they've been active, from playing on all 47 Down From the Mountain dates, performing on the O Brother, Where Art Thou? and Cold Mountain soundtracks, June Carter Cash's final album, Wildwood Flower, and various other projects. This album, recorded on the soundstage of the Western Jubilee Warehouse in Colorado Springs, is a dynamite setting for the material found here. There are 17 songs in this collection, seven of them traditional melodies, still others so old they've seldom been heard over the last century, a Hank Williams' tune, and a couple by friends of Norman and Nancy's that are so saturated in the deep country, they could have been written decades before. The set opens with "Sunny Side of Life," one of two songs closely associated with the Carter Family. The strident, two-part harmony and dual guitars are the perfect opener for an album that is arresting for its immediacy and its strident honoring of tradition. That said, these songs aren't nostalgic; they are part of a living, breathing tradition that informs as it delights.
Track List (try tracks 8,10,11 and 17)

1.
2.
3.
4.
5.
6.
7.
8.
9.
10.
11.
12.
13.
14.
15.
16.
17.