Be Ready Boys: Appalachia to Abilene, released on Shanachie in 1999, teams Norman Blake — the Georgia flatpicker and multi-instrumentalist who has sat at the center of traditional American acoustic music since the late 1960s — with guitarist and singer Rich O'Brien. The album threads together the two strands its subtitle names: southern Appalachian song and the cowboy and western repertoire of the southern plains. Across sixteen tracks the pair move between fiddle tunes, Carter Family material ('Homestead on the Farm'), western numbers, and old gospel like 'Heavenly Sunlight,' trading guitar and mandolin lines with the relaxed precision of longtime collaborators. Blake's deep command of the older repertoire anchors the set, while O'Brien's playing and singing give it range. Be Ready Boys is a quietly expert duet record, the work of two musicians who treat the breadth of American vernacular song as a single living tradition.
Tracklist
- 1 Tennessee Wagoner alt version 1:35
- 2 Old Pal of Yesterday 4:30
- 3 Texola Waltz 2:24
- 4 When It’s Lamplighting Time in the Valley alt version 3:37
- 5 Bowling Green Rag 2:33
- 6 I Wonder How the Old Folks are at Home alt version 3:03
- 7 Mexico 2:26
- 8 Going Home 3:40
- 9 Kentucky’s Your Home Source Recording 3:14
- 10 Under the Double Eagle alt version 3:47
- 11 Grandpa's Barn 4:26
- 12 Seamus O'Brien 3:45
- 13 Flop-Eared Mule alt version 1:58
- 14 Maiden’s Prayer alt version 4:08
- 15 Callahan 2:13
- 16 Heavenly Sunlight 3:45
