In Europe (WAM 69.024) was recorded in March 1976 and issued in Germany the same year. Bill Clifton was born William August Marburg in Riderwood, Maryland, and organized one of the first bluegrass festivals, at Luray, Virginia, in 1961. His family moved to England in 1963 and returned to the United States in 1978. In the 1970s he led First Generation with the mandolinist Red Rector and the banjoist Don Stover.
This LP is a trio record. Clifton plays guitar and autoharp and sings lead, Rector plays mandolin, and Jean-Blaise Rochat plays banjo and guitar; Rector and Rochat sing harmony. The sessions were captured in dummy-head (Kunstkopf) stereo. Twelve of the fourteen tracks are vocals, among them Charlie Monroe’s “Valley of Peace,” “Tall Pines” by S. Black and S. Grass, A. P. Carter’s “The Spirit of Love Watches You” and “On the Sea of Galilee,” and the Autry-Foley-Horton song “Dixie Cannon Ball.” Clifton’s own “Ashdown Waltz” is one of the two instrumentals; the other is “Fourteen Days in Georgia.” Clifton was inducted into the International Bluegrass Music Association Hall of Fame in 2008.
Tracklist
- 1 Are you from Dixie 2:42
- 2 Down in my old cabin home 2:47
- 3 The spirit of love watches you 2:37
- 4 Fourteen days in Georgia 1:46
- 5 You are my best friend 2:58
- 6 Dixie cannon ball 2:05
- 7 Keep that wheel a-turning 2:35
- 8 Valley of Peace alt version 2:21
- 9 It takes a long tall brown skin gal 1:33
- 10 The old man's story 2:51
- 11 Ashdown waltz 1:52
- 12 On the Sea of Galilee 2:44
- 13 There's no other love for me 2:30
- 14 Tall Pines alt version 3:24
