High Waters was Dave Evans’s second album after he came home from prison in 1995. The small Kentucky label Neon first issued it in 1998 (NR 0998), and Rebel Records reissued it in 2003 as REB-CD 1787. Evans came from Portsmouth, Ohio, and was one of the few banjo players in bluegrass who also sang lead. He formed his band River Bend in 1978 and made albums for Vetco in 1979 and 1980 and for Rebel from 1981 to 1985. In 1989 he was sentenced to ten years in a federal penitentiary. He served six, learned to play guitar while inside, and plays lead guitar on many tracks here.
Six of the twelve songs are his own, among them “High Waters (Bad Blood),” “Cold Dark Cell” and “Stone Coal West Virginia.” Art Menius reviewed the Neon release in Bluegrass Unlimited in January 1999 and wrote that the last two dealt directly with Evans’s recent experience. The rest of the program includes “He Died a Rounder at 21,” “Y’all Come,” “Put My Little Shoes Away,” the old ballad “Fair River Side” and the instrumental “Dear Old Dixie,” and it closes with “Humble Carpenter from Galilee.”
Evans produced the album himself at River Track Studio in Fort Gay, West Virginia, with Otis Lynn Dillon engineering. Ray Craft played guitar, Gerald Evans Jr., a former member of the Traditional Grass, played fiddle and mandolin, Randy Thomas also played mandolin, and Clancy Fields played bass. Craft, Gerald Evans and Thomas all sang with him.
Tracklist
- 1 Stone Coal West Virginia 3:54
- 2 Love Will Make It Last 2:49
- 3 High Waters (Bad Blood) 3:12
- 4 Pure Gallo Wine 2:25
- 5 Put My Little Shoes Away 2:50
- 6 Cold Dark Cell 4:41
- 7 Fair River Side 3:59
- 8 Drink Up and Go Home alt version 2:54
- 9 Dear Old Dixie alt version 2:57
- 10 He Died a Rounder at 21 alt version 3:32
- 11 Y’all Come alt version 2:20
- 12 Humble Carpenter From Galilee 4:22
