Dreaming (Rounder CD 0427, 1997) collects fourteen tracks from the three LPs Delia Bell and Bill Grant made for Rounder in the 1980s: The Cheer of the Home Fires (1984), A Few Dollars More (1986) and Following a Feeling (1988). The duo came from Hugo, Oklahoma, where they had started singing together on a local radio show around 1960. By the time of these records Bell had also made a solo album for Warner Bros., produced by Emmylou Harris, and Rounder billed the LPs as by “Delia Bell & Bill Grant,” with her name first.
All three LPs were recorded at Bias Recorders in Springfield, Virginia, with the Johnson Mountain Boys behind the duo: Dudley Connell on guitar, David McLaughlin on mandolin, Eddie Stubbs on fiddle, Richard Underwood (later Tom Adams) on banjo, and Larry Robbins (later Marshall Wilborn) on bass. Roger Williams played dobro throughout. On A Few Dollars More, Del McCoury played guitar and his brother Jerry McCoury played bass.
Compared with their earlier records, which leaned on Grant’s own songs and older traditional material, the Rounder sessions drew on newer writers. The CD takes five tracks from The Cheer of the Home Fires, among them Kermit Richmond’s “Dreaming” and Harlan Howard’s “The Wall.” Six come from A Few Dollars More, including Dave Evans’s “Foggy Mountain Home,” J. D. Hutchison’s “Silver Tongue and Gold Plated Lies,” the duo’s own “Louisa” and Hugh Moffatt’s “Jack and Lucy.” The last three are from Following a Feeling, including George Jones’s “Flame in My Heart” and Hazel Dickens’s “Won’t You Come and Sing for Me.” The CD credits Bill Grant and Ken Irwin as producers, and Jon Hartley Fox wrote the notes.
Tracklist
- 1 Dreaming 2:05
- 2 Beggin' To You 3:12
- 3 Foggy Mountain Home 2:40
- 4 Sad Situation 2:29
- 5 Heartbreak Express 2:54
- 6 Silver Tongue And Gold Plated Lies 3:49
- 7 It'll Be Me 2:15
- 8 Flame In My Heart 3:43
- 9 The Wall 2:57
- 10 Don't Worry About Me 3:08
- 11 Louisa 2:51
- 12 Night Flyer 3:43
- 13 Won’t You Come and Sing For Me alt version 3:06
- 14 Jack And Lucy 5:21
