The Country Gentlemen’s Sing and Play Folk Songs and Bluegrass was issued by Folkways in 1961 (FA 2410). The Washington, D.C., band had begun on 4 July 1957, and this record was made in February and March 1961 at Capitol Transcriptions in Washington by Charlie Waller (guitar), John Duffey (mandolin), Eddie Adcock (banjo) and Jim Cox (bass). Pete Kuykendall engineered it, and Duffey wrote the liner notes.
Most of the sixteen tracks are trios, with Waller singing lead, Duffey tenor and Adcock baritone. Duffey takes the lead himself on “Come All Ye Tender Hearted” and “Red Rocking Chair,” the latter with Kenny Haddock added on dobro. The material mixes older songs, among them “Handsome Molly,” “Little Bessie” and “Will the Circle Be Unbroken,” with country and bluegrass sources: Carter Stanley’s “The Fields Have Turned Brown,” Charlie Monroe’s “I’m Coming Back (But I Don’t Know When)” and “Behind These Prison Walls of Love,” credited to Bill Bolick and Hazel Jarrard. Duffey wrote “Victim to the Tomb,” “Wear a Red Rose” and the instrumental “Southbound.” Adcock wrote another instrumental, “Strutting on the Strings,” and the band also plays “Train 45.”
Smithsonian Folkways reissued the album on CD in 1991 as Folk Songs & Bluegrass, and it also appeared on LP in Japan in the 1970s.
Tracklist
- 1 Reuben alt version 2:53
- 2 Little Bessie alt version 3:31
- 3 The Fields Have Turned Brown alt version 3:05
- 4 They’re at Rest Together alt version 3:01
- 5 Strutting on the Strings 2:32
- 6 Remembrance of You 2:54
- 7 Red Rocking Chair Source Recording 2:04
- 8 Will the Circle be Unbroken Source Recording 2:55
- 9 Handsome Molly alt version 2:29
- 10 Victim to the Tomb 3:43
- 11 Behind These Prison Walls Of Love Source Recording 3:00
- 12 Wear a Red Rose 2:11
- 13 I’m Coming Back But I Don’t Know When alt version 3:08
- 14 Southbound 2:04
- 15 Come All Ye Tender Hearted 3:13
- 16 Standing in the Need of Prayer alt version 2:35
