Yesterday and Today Vol. 1 documents the Country Gentlemen in live performance in 1973, capturing the Washington, D.C. quartet during the middle period of their long career as one of the most influential progressive bluegrass bands of the postwar era. The group — built around founder Charlie Waller's warm baritone and a succession of instrumentalists and tenor singers — had spent the 1960s expanding bluegrass vocabulary to include folk revival material, country songs, and original compositions, and by the early 1970s they were performing for audiences that overlapped substantially with the college folk circuit. "I Never Will Marry," drawn from the Anglo-American ballad tradition, illustrates the band's ability to move between genre touchstones with naturalness and ease. The live setting suits the Gentlemen well; the audience rapport is palpable, and the informal energy of the performances captures something about the band that studio recordings sometimes understate.
Tracklist
- 1 Are you waiting just for me? 2:47
- 2 The Fields Have Turned Brown alt version 2:48
- 3 Tom Dooley alt version 3:02
- 4 Less of me 2:00
- 5 The Long Black Veil alt version 3:02
- 6 When They Ring Those Golden Bells alt version 2:59
- 7 I never will marry 3:15
- 8 Electricity 2:19
- 9 Under the Double Eagle alt version 3:47
- 10 California blues (Blue yodel #4) 2:53
- 11 Get in Line Brother alt version 2:48
- 12 Mrs. Robinson 3:12
- 13 Blue Yodel #4 alt version
