Waterloo, Tennessee was released by Rounder Records on 13 March 2007 (ROUCD 577), with John Paul Jones, the former Led Zeppelin bass player and keyboardist, as producer. Jones has said his route into American string-band music ran through a Dillards album and concerts by Del McCoury, Nickel Creek, Tim O’Brien and Gillian Welch; he first met Uncle Earl at MerleFest.
The band on the record is the four-piece that had settled into place in 2003: K.C. Groves on mandolin, guitar and mandola, Abigail Washburn on banjo, Rayna Gellert on fiddle, and Kristin Andreassen on guitar, fiddle and ukulele banjo, all four singing. Uncle Earl began in 1999 as a road band assembled around a recording project of Groves’s, and Waterloo, Tennessee came two years after She Waits for Night. Jones plays on it as well, on piano, bass and mandola among other things, and the guests include Gillian Welch on drums, Tara Nevins on triangle, and Erin Youngberg and Eric Thorin on bass; Youngberg also sings.
There are sixteen tracks. “Black-Eyed Susie” opens the record, “The Birds Were Singing of You” is the twelfth, and the list includes “Buonoparte” and “Bony on the Isle of St. Helena,” the instrumental “Sisters of the Road,” and “Streak O’ Lean, Streak O’ Fat,” also titled “Hongshao Rou.” A Living Tradition review noted a range from the almost unaccompanied “Easy in the Early” to driving instrumentals such as “Sisters of the Road.”
Tracklist
- 1 Black-Eyed Susie alt version 1:50
- 2 The Last Goodbye 3:40
- 3 One True 2:30
- 4 Wish I Had My Time Again 2:32
- 5 My Little Carpenter 3:46
- 6 My Epitaph 3:17
- 7 Buonaparte 0:44
- 8 Bony On The Isle Of St. Helena 4:09
- 9 Sisters Of The Road 1:20
- 10 Streak O' Lean, Streak O' Fat (A.K.A. Hongshao Rou) 3:49
- 11 D & P Blues 3:32
- 12 The Birds Were Singing of You Source Recording 3:24
- 13 Wallflower 3:10
- 14 Drinker Born 3:22
- 15 Easy In The Early ('Til Sundown) 2:47
- 16 I May Never 3:37
