The Bluegrass Album was recorded on 22–24 September 1980 at 1750 Arch Studios in Berkeley, California, and released by Rounder in 1981 (Rounder 0140). Tony Rice and J. D. Crowe, who had played together in Crowe’s New South in the 1970s, put the group together, and the sessions were first meant to be a Tony Rice solo album. Rice produced it and Bill Wolf engineered and mixed it.
Rice plays guitar and sings lead, Crowe plays banjo and sings baritone, Doyle Lawson plays mandolin and sings tenor, Bobby Hicks plays fiddle and sings bass, and Todd Phillips plays bass. The eleven songs come from the music’s first generation. Three are Bill Monroe’s: “Molly and Tenbrooks,” “Toy Heart” and “On My Way Back to the Old Home.” “Blue Ridge Cabin Home,” by Louise Certain and Gladys Stacey, was first recorded by Flatt & Scruggs. The band arranged the traditional “Model Church” themselves, and “Chalk Up Another One” is credited to H. Winston and W. Neal.
A second volume followed in 1982 with the same five players. The group kept the name and the format through a sixth volume, Bluegrass Instrumentals, in 1996. That album was named Instrumental Album of the Year by the International Bluegrass Music Association, which had already named the Bluegrass Album Band Instrumental Group of the Year in 1990.
Tracklist
- 1 Blue Ridge Cabin Home Source Recording 3:11
- 2 We Can’t Be Darlings Anymore Source Recording 3:03
- 3 Molly and Tenbrooks Source Recording 3:07
- 4 I Believe in You Darling Source Recording 2:32
- 5 Model Church Source Recording 4:16
- 6 On My Way Back to the Old Home Source Recording 2:32
- 7 Gonna Settle Down Source Recording 2:53
- 8 Toy Heart alt version 3:03
- 9 Pain in my Heart Source Recording 3:14
- 10 Chalk Up Another One Source Recording 3:08
- 11 River of Death Source Recording 2:22
