Crossing the Tracks, released by Rounder Records in 1979, is Béla Fleck's debut album as a leader, recorded when the banjo player was twenty and the picture of his future trajectory had only just come into focus. The band brings together a New Grass-leaning circle — Sam Bush on fiddle, Russ Barenberg on guitar, Bob Applebaum on mandolin, and Mark Schatz on upright bass — for a program that is mostly straightforward bluegrass with detours through acoustic swing and even a take on Chick Corea's jazz piece Spain. The willingness to cross idioms openly on a debut album was already characteristic; Fleck would build the rest of his career on that same instinct, but Crossing the Tracks is where the principle was first announced.
Tracklist
- 1 Dear Old Dixie alt version 2:57
- 2 Inman Square 4:00
- 3 Texas Barbeque 3:57
- 4 Growling Old Man And The Grumbling Old Woman 1:42
- 5 Spain 7:12
- 6 Crossing The Tracks 3:38
- 7 Spring Thaw 2:27
- 8 How Can You Face Me Now 4:55
- 9 Twilight 2:01
- 10 Frosty Morning 2:59
- 11 Ain’t Gonna Work Tomorrow alt version 2:26