Fiddle Tune X captures a young Billy Strings in duo with mandolinist Don Julin, the partnership that gave Strings his first serious platform before he assembled the band that would carry him to the front rank of contemporary bluegrass. The setting is stripped to its essentials — guitar and mandolin, two voices when there are voices, the kind of arrangement that leaves every note exposed. Even at this early stage Strings's flatpicking already shows the rhythmic drive and harmonic curiosity that would define his later work, his attack carrying the tonal weight of the Tony Rice lineage while pushing into more aggressive territory. Julin, the older musician of the pair, plays the supporting role with the patience of a veteran sideman. The repertoire is built around traditional fiddle-tune material that gives the record its title and frames Strings as a working tradition-bearer before he became a commercial phenomenon.
Tracklist
- 1 Beaumont Rag alt version 3:16
- 2 Walk On Boy alt version 3:41
- 3 Open Up Them Pearly Gates 2:30
- 4 That Home Far Away alt version 2:24
- 5 Miss the Mississippi and You 4:36
- 6 The String Changing Tune 1:17
- 7 Salt Creek - Old Joe Clark 4:45
- 8 Sharecropper’s Son alt version 2:30
- 9 Lonesome Moonlight Waltz alt version 3:56
- 10 I Am a Pilgrim alt version 2:32
- 11 Poor Ellen Smith alt version 1:57
- 12 Fiddle Tune X 2:42
- 13 Dos Banjos 2:44
- 14 I Ain’t Gonna Work Tomorrow alt version 3:17
- 15 Shady Grove alt version 6:59
- 16 Little Maggie alt version 6:17
- 17 How Mountain Girls Can Love alt version 2:12
