The Storyteller and the Banjoman, the 1982 collaboration between Earl Scruggs and Tom T. Hall, pairs two of country music's most distinctive personalities in a project sitting at the intersection of bluegrass, storytelling, and mainstream country. Scruggs, whose three-finger banjo technique had defined the sound of Flatt and Scruggs and established the primary vocabulary of bluegrass banjo, had spent the 1970s exploring more eclectic territory with his sons in the Earl Scruggs Revue. Hall, known as 'The Storyteller' for his character-driven narrative songwriting, brought to the collaboration a literary sensibility that complemented Scruggs's instrumental authority. The album documents a late-career Scruggs comfortable enough in his own identity to engage a songwriter working in a different but adjacent tradition.
Tracklist
- 1 Song of the South 2:51
- 2 Shackles and Chains alt version 3:21
- 3 The Engineers Don't Wave from the Trains Anymore 2:30
- 4 Don’t This Road Look Rough and Rocky alt version 2:45
- 5 Lonesome Valley 3:00
- 6 Roll in My Sweet Baby’s Arms alt version 2:37
- 7 There Ain't No Country Music On This Juke Box 2:27
- 8 A Lover's Farewell 2:58
- 9 Don’t Give Your Heart to a Rambler alt version 3:01
- 10 Dim Lights, Thick Smoke alt version 3:52
- 11 No Expectations 3:36