I've really become conscious of Jack Lawrence over the past year, although I'd heard him a lot over the thirteen years that he has played with Doc Watson. I even got to chat with him briefly at a show they did in Soquel, CA quite a few years back. But it was seeing him on some videos that I reviewed for this magazine that made me fully aware of Jack as a great picker in his own right. Now I'm amazed that it has taken this long for him to finally come out with his own album. It really is "About Time".
The album is primarily vocal, with only three instrumentals out of fourteen songs, but the picking is all first-rate. Jack has his own style and plays some really tasty variations on both instrumentals and breaks to vocals.
There are lots of fine back-up musicians as well, including Doc Watson on guitar; Don Lewis and T. Michael Coleman on bass; Mike Auldridge and Kevin Maul on dobro, Jimmy Gaudreau, Charles Pettee, Tony Williamson, and Don Lewis on mandolin; Craig Smith on banjo; and Don Lewis on fiddle. Doc Watson, Moondi Klein, and Russell Johnson provide harmony on most of the vocals, with only Georgie being sung solo.
Of the vocals, my favorites are the two traditional tunes, "Mary of the Wild Moor," which is an old-fashioned tear-jerker sung by Jack and Moondi Klein with great feeling and expressiveness, and "Georgie," done a bit slower than Doc did it and accompanied only by Jack's guitar and Robbie Link on bowed bass.
This CD also includes the instrumental "Ten Miles to Deep Gap," which appeared in the March/April 1997 issue of this magazine.
The Tunes:
- Stagger Mt. Tradgedy
- Never See My Home Again
- Up This Hill and Down
- Bye Bye Blues
- Walking Into Wichita
- She Made Me Lose My Blues
- Cora is Gone
- Ten Miles to Deep Gap
- Georgie
- If You're Ever Gonna Love Me
- Mr. Spaceman
- Mary of the Wild Moor
- Stoney Creek
- She Ain't Waitin'
