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-=Review=- by C. Eric Banister

When Bill Monroe died in 1996, Ricky Skaggs felt a heavy burden to continue the tradition Monroe had started just over 50 years before. He soon returned from country to his roots performing only bluegrass, and his newest release is a fantastic effort to remind newer fans where it all began. 

Mining the original 28 sides cut by the band, that featured Monroe, Lester Flatt, Earl Scruggs, Chubby Wise and Howard Watts, Skaggs selected 12 songs ranging from the well-known "Bluegrass Breakdown" and "Little Cabin Home On The Hill" to lesser known gems like "Goin' Back To Old Kentucky" and "Toy Heart." 

For this tribute, Skaggs forgoes note-for-note re-creations and as is to be expected, Skaggs and his band do a masterful job of bringing these classics to life. He does pull in a couple of ex-Blue Grass Boys for help. Del McCoury lends his soaring tenor to "The Old Crossroad" and Earl Scruggs, the only surviving member of the original groundbreaking band picks his banjo on "Goin' Back To Old Kentucky." 

The album is a great album in and of itself, but it also serves as a great starting point for anyone interested in digging deeper into the bluegrass tradition.

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Artist...[ Ricky Skaggs And Kentucky Thunder
Title....[ Honoring The Fathers of Bluegrass
Genre....[ Bluegrass                        
Year.....[ 2008                             
Encoder..[ LAME3.97 (-V2 --vbr-new)         
Bitrate..[ VBRkbps                          
Quality..[ Joint-Stereo                     
kHz......[ 44.1kHz                          
Source...[ CDDA                             
Date.....[ May-02-2008                      
Type.....[ Album                            
Size.....[ 38,0 MB                          
Lable....[ Skaggs Family Records            
Cat.Nr...[ n/a                              
URL......[ www.skaggsfamilyrecords.com      

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Nr. ARTIST/TRACK.                                         Time.
---------------------------------------------------------------
01  goin back to old kentucky                             03:05
02  when youre lonely                                     03:04
03  toy heart                                             03:32
04  its mighty dark to travel                             03:06
05  mothers only sleeping                                 03:13
06  bluegrass breakdown                                   02:55
07  little cabin home on the hill                         03:15
08  mansions for me                                       03:30
09  sweetheart you done me wrong                          02:59
10  why did you wander                                    02:51
11  remember the cross                                    03:01
12  the old crossroad                                     02:52
                                                          -----
                                                  TOTAL:  37:23 min
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Bill Monroe had already recorded some sixty songs with his     
brother Charlie Monroe for BluebirdRCA Records in the late     
1930s (as the Monroe Brothers), but while he was fronting his  
own group in the early '40s, he felt he wasn't quite getting   
the sound he was searching for in his head. Then in 1945 he    
added a singer and guitarist to his band named Lester Flatt,   
and later in that same year he added an extraordinary          
three-finger-styled banjo player named Earl Scruggs to the     
group, and suddenly that sound Monroe had been chasing was     
right there in front of him. Bluegrass. Rounded out by Chubby  
Wise and Howard Watts, this version of the Bluegrass Boys      
didn't get to record until almost a year later, but the rest,  
as they so often say, is history. This lovingly assembled album
is Ricky Skaggs' attempt to pay homage to that amazing band and
he leads his Kentucky Thunder ensemble through some of the     
songs that Monroe and company recorded in that first burst of  
sessions for Columbia Records. It's fitting that the only      
surviving member of that version of the Bluegrass Boys, the    
still astounding Earl Scruggs, is on hand here to help with the
opening track, a fine version of "Goin' Back to Old Kentucky." 
Nothing replaces the original sides from 1946 and 1947,        
naturally, but these renditions, particularly on tracks like   
the lovely "When You're Lonely," the wise and cautionary "The  
Old Crossroad," and the blistering instrumental explosion of   
"Bluegrass Breakdown," gently and warmly remind just how       
innovative and fresh the Bluegrass Boys really were some       
sixty-plus years ago. They created the very template for       
bluegrass, and while modern players have stretched the         
boundaries a bit, bluegrass in the 21st century is still very  
much that long ago sound Monroe heard in his head.