The Grascals: Keep On Walkin'

Country Music Reviews

The Grascals : Keep On Walkin'

Let's be brutally honest: this album doesn't stand a cat in hell's chance!

Why so harsh? Well, there are fiddles; there's a double bass; there's a banjo; and there's folks SINGING!!!!

Now, if you can find a Country radio station ANYWHERE ready to give airplay to an album with fiddles, banjos and double basses backing people SINGING, I'll up and eat my Stetson.

Now, before The Grascal's people reach for their twelve bores and head for my homestead bent on retribution, let me say something else: This is the finest Bluegrass/Country album I've heard in a long time.

Favorite track by a mile is "Remembering". Wonderful lyrics, haunting fiddle and a total sound to die for.

It's interesting to me that on a wholly Bluegrass album, The Grascals find space for a couple of tracks which move closer to a "mainstream" sound. Could that be their bid to get "Country" radio airtime?

Surely they know that's a none starter.

"Indiana", co written by singer Jamie Johnson and Nashville veteran Harley Allen is perhaps the most accessible of the songs on the album.

It's possibly the only track "Country" radio's corporate suits would consider allowing their toadying DJs to play.

You know, it's criminal that so much of what YOU get to listen to is decided by a bunch of lawyers and accountants in high rise office blocks so far removed from radio's listeners and so insulated and isolated from the reality of depression-bound America that they might as well be on the moon. (Now THERE's an idea).

Most of them wouldn't know what a Dobro is (Hell, it's NOT included in the Microsoft spellcheck!!!), and the only fiddling they get to do is with their tax accounts!.

But back to the music: Sprinkled through the 12 songs here are some classics with a "new" Grascals twist.

They put a wonderful humor into the vocals of Waylon Jenning's classic "Only Daddy That’ll Walk the Line", somehow remove any trace of emotion from "Today I Started Loving You Again" (classic written by the late Bonnie Owens and Merle Haggard).

The fiddle and banjo on "Rollin' in My Sweet Baby's Arms" are pure high speed brilliance and it's easy to see why it's a "live" favorite.

The guys tell me they had great fun making the album, from choosing the songs to hitting the studio to lay them down, and that's what shows on the recording.

And while I stand by what I started out saying - that this album doesn't stand a cat in hell's chance on "Country" radio, I'll add something else.

It is a brilliant album, and Country music lovers will buy it in their thousands which, hopefully means the band will be around to make a new album in rather less than two years.


My View: Call your local station and tell 'em to be brave and PLAY something from this TRULY Country album!

What do YOU think?? Tell us here!