Alice Gerrard and Mike Seeger

Alice Gerrard & Mike Seeger (Greenhays GR 704) was released in 1980. Gerrard, who had earlier made records with Hazel Dickens, and Seeger, a member of the New Lost City Ramblers, were married to each other. Seeger recorded most of the album at home in Garrett Park, Maryland, in 1980; two tracks were made in Chevy Chase, Maryland, one of them by Mike Rivers, who also mixed the record at Gypsy Studio in Falls Church, Virginia.

Gerrard sings and plays guitar, fiddle and piano. Seeger sings and plays guitar, banjo, banjo-guitar, cello, fiddle and mandola. One track, “Pretty Polly,” was recorded by Seeger at Tommy Jarrell’s home near Mount Airy, North Carolina, in March 1979, with Jarrell on fiddle. The fourteen tracks include “Bowling Green,” “St. Louis Blues,” “Old Bunch of Keys,” “Sugar Baby,” “Dear Companion,” “Needmore” and “Gone to View That Land.” The whole LP was reissued, with additional recordings, as the CD Bowling Green (5-String Productions, 2008).