Hand Hewn is Dry Branch Fire Squad’s 2001 album for Rounder (0466), produced by Ken Irwin, with liner notes by J.D. Rhynes and Ron Thomason. Thomason, who founded the band in 1976, sings lead and plays mandolin and guitar. Suzanne Thomas plays guitar and banjo, Bobby Maynard banjo and fiddle, Charlie Leet bass, and Mary Jo Leet sings high baritone. Brian Aldridge plays guitar on “Willye Brennan,” and Hazel Dickens joins Thomason for her own song “Black Lung,” sung without accompaniment.
The fifteen tracks run from fiddle tunes and old-time songs to gospel and a cappella pieces. “Angelina Baker” blends the fiddle tune with a Stephen Foster song, and “Nazeer, Nazeer,” a Thomason mandolin instrumental, is named for his racehorse. Ralph Stanley’s “Two Coats,” Aubrey Holt’s “Atlanta Is Burning” and Bill Monroe’s “Lonesome Road Blues” are among the others. Suzanne Thomas sings “The Cuckoo Is a Pretty Bird” alone with her banjo, and on “Papa’s Billy Goat” Thomason performs hambone, with fiddle and foot stomps.
Tracklist
- 1 Angeline the Baker alt version 4:28
- 2 I Saw A Man At The Close Of Day 3:37
- 3 I Can Go to Them 2:29
- 4 Nazeer, Nazeer 3:03
- 5 Atlanta Is Burning 4:08
- 6 Willye Brennan 5:26
- 7 While Roving On Last Winter's Night 3:20
- 8 Sailor's Return 4:00
- 9 Black Lung 2:32
- 10 The Cuckoo Is a Pretty Bird alt version 3:23
- 11 Two Coats alt version 3:41
- 12 Midnight, the Unconquered Outlaw 4:10
- 13 I'll Live Again 2:23
- 14 Papa's Billy Goat 2:28
- 15 Lonesome Road Blues alt version 2:28
