Industrial Strength Bluegrass cover

Industrial Strength Bluegrass

Various Artists

Album · 2021 · Smithsonian Folkways SFW 40238

Industrial Strength Bluegrass: Southwestern Ohio’s Musical Legacy is a 16-track collection released by Smithsonian Folkways in 2021. It is the companion to a University of Illinois Press book of the same title and tells the story of bluegrass carried north by Appalachians who took jobs in southwest Ohio’s factories after the Second World War. Joe Mullins, whose father, the fiddler and radio personality Paul “Moon” Mullins, made that journey, produced the album, and his son Daniel Mullins wrote the liner notes. The International Bluegrass Music Association named it Album of the Year in 2021.

Each track is a Southwest Ohio bluegrass song remade by a current artist. Joe Mullins and the Radio Ramblers open with Dwight Yoakam’s “Readin’, Rightin’, Route 23.” Dan Tyminski sings “20/20 Vision,” first recorded by Jimmy Martin and the Osborne Brothers, and Vince Gill sings Flatt and Scruggs’s “Baby Blue Eyes.” Ronnie Bowman, Don Rigsby and Kenny Smith take the Stanley Brothers’ “Stone Walls and Steel Bars,” the Grascals do the Osborne Brothers’ “Once More,” and Mo Pitney and the band Merle Monroe sing Harley Allen’s “Suzanne.” Sierra Hull leads an all-star band on Frank Wakefield’s instrumental “Mountain Strings,” with Kristin Scott Benson on banjo, and Bobby Osborne closes with “We’ll Head Back to Harlan.” Lee Ann Womack, Rhonda Vincent with Caleb Daugherty, Dailey & Vincent, Josh Williams, Russell Moore and Bradley Walker, and the Isaacs with the Oak Ridge Boys also appear.

Tracklist

  1. 1 Readin', Rightin', Route 23 3:37
  2. 2 20-20 Vision alt version 2:46
  3. 3 Suzanne alt version 2:48
  4. 4 From Life's Other Side 5:36
  5. 5 A Face in the Crowd alt version 5:20
  6. 6 When He Blessed My Soul 3:04
  7. 7 The Rolling Mills of Middletown 3:56
  8. 8 Family Reunion 3:28
  9. 9 Mountain Strings 3:43
  10. 10 Stone Walls and Steel Bars alt version 2:25
  11. 11 Are You Missing Me alt version 2:26
  12. 12 Once More alt version 2:28
  13. 13 Barefoot Nellie alt version 2:31
  14. 14 Garden Tomb 2:48
  15. 15 Baby Blue Eyes alt version 3:59
  16. 16 We'll Head Back to Harlan 2:26

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