At the Old Schoolhouse cover

At the Old Schoolhouse

The Johnson Mountain Boys

Album · 1989 · Rounder 0260/0261

At the Old Schoolhouse is a live double album by the Johnson Mountain Boys, recorded on 20 February 1988 at the Lucketts Community Center in Lucketts, Virginia, in what was billed as the band’s farewell performance. Rounder recorded the show and released it in 1989 as a two-record set (Rounder 0260/0261). The group had decided to stop, as the Bluegrass Music Hall of Fame’s account has it, because the five members could not earn a decent wage; retirement was short-lived, and the band regrouped on a much lighter schedule. The album was nominated for a Grammy.

The five on stage were Dudley Connell on guitar, Tom Adams on banjo, David McLaughlin on mandolin, Eddie Stubbs on fiddle and Marshall Wilborn on bass. Much of the set comes from the bluegrass repertoire—Bill Monroe’s “The Bluest Man in Town” and “Get Down on Your Knees and Pray,” Don Reno and Red Smiley’s “Unwanted Love,” and the instrumentals “Black Mountain Rag” and “Orange Blossom Special”—and part of it is the band’s own: Connell’s “Weathered Gray Stone” and “Now Just Suppose,” McLaughlin’s “Georgia Stomp,” and Richard Underwood’s “Five Speed.” Stubbs takes the lead vocal on Ernest Tubb’s “Waltz Across Texas” and plays “Ricestrow” as a duet with Adams’s banjo.

The last side leans toward gospel. “Daniel Prayed” is sung in four parts, with Connell leading, McLaughlin on tenor, Wilborn on baritone and Stubbs on bass, and only Connell’s guitar and McLaughlin’s mandolin behind the voices.

Tracklist

  1. 1 Intro / Black Mountain Blues - Live 5:14
  2. 2 Let the Whole World Talk alt version 2:41
  3. 3 Long Journey Home alt version 3:04
  4. 4 Bluest Man In Town - Live 3:32
  5. 5 John Henry alt version 3:12
  6. 6 Weathered Gray Stone - Live 4:50
  7. 7 Unwanted Love alt version 2:34
  8. 8 Ricestrow - Live 1:58
  9. 9 Waltz Across Texas alt version 2:12
  10. 10 Five Speed - Live 2:33
  11. 11 Dream of a Miner’s Child alt version 4:54
  12. 12 Georgia Stomp - Live 2:43
  13. 13 Sweetest Gift alt version 2:41
  14. 14 I’ve Found a Hiding Place alt version 3:25
  15. 15 With Body and Soul alt version 3:21
  16. 16 Orange Blossom Special alt version 2:56
  17. 17 Get Down on Your Knees and Pray alt version 3:38
  18. 18 Going To Georgia - Live 1:26
  19. 19 Now Just Suppose - Live 3:16
  20. 20 Don't You Call My Name - Live 2:09
  21. 21 Do You Call That Religion - Live 2:44
  22. 22 Old Daniel Prayed alt version 2:25
  23. 23 Wake Up Susan - Live 1:30

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