33 Days to Morning Glory

Norman & Nancy Blake - The Morning Glory Ramblers (2004) {Plectrafone 80302-01160-2}
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© 2004 Plectrafone Records / Dualtone / Norman & Nancy Blake | 80302-01160-2
Bluegrass / Country / Folk / Old-Timey

It's hard to believe that Morning Glory Ramblers is the first full-length recording by Norman and Nancy Blake in eight years. Certainly they've been active, from playing on all 47 Down From the Mountain dates, performing on the O Brother, Where Art Thou? and Cold Mountain soundtracks, June Carter Cash's final album, Wildwood Flower, and various other projects. This album, recorded on the soundstage of the Western Jubilee Warehouse in Colorado Springs, is a dynamite setting for the material found here. There are 17 songs in this collection, seven of them traditional melodies, still others so old they've seldom been heard over the last century, a Hank Williams' tune, and a couple by friends of Norman and Nancy's that are so saturated in the deep country, they could have been written decades before.

The popularity of California rock bands with both female and male vocals was simply immense in the wake of the Mamas & the Papas and Jefferson Airplane. Morning Glory pay significant tribute to both bands on their obscure and only LP, though you can certainly hear some Byrds in some of the guitar licks, as well as traces of Bay Area psychedelic groups like Moby Grape in some of the arrangements. It's well-sung (with the sole woman in the group, Gini Graybeal, handling most of the lead vocals) and tightly played, with Abe "Voco" Kesh, most famous for his work with Blue Cheer, handling the production…