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Various Artists - Great Takes

(Iowa Public Television IPTV02A) 2000.

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This is a compilation of live recordings taken from performances on Iowa Public Television's "Old-Time Country Music" series. From what I can gather, the show was a half hour stereo TV series recorded before a studio audience at IPTV in Johnston. It began in 1989 and included local, regional and national acoustic artists with a mix of country, folk and bluegrass.^[1]

Ralph and the Clinch Mountain Boys appeared on the 25th Sept 1991 show and two tracks from it are featured on this CD:- Step It Up And Go and Clinch Mountain Backstep.

Step It Up And Go is one of Curly Ray Cline's novelty vocal numbers, which features Junior Blankenship's uptempo lead guitar and a banjo break by Ralph. Curly had previously recorded the song on his Smarter Than The Average Idiot LP in 1984, and it seems to have been derived from a 1932 jug band song Bottle Up And Go.^[2] From a cursory scan of youtube, Curly's version seems to have been patterned more after Doc Watson's 1968 recording than anything else.

Several other Bluegrass acts are also included with two tracks a piece by: Josh Graves and Kenny Baker, Jim & Jesse and Mac Wiseman. Bill Grant & Delia Bell also have one track. One highlight of the CD is the Czech bluegrass band Druhá Tráva (Second Grass) whose singer Robert Krestan holds out the "hey" (little water boy) high note on Muleskinner Blues for about 25 seconds.

Many thanks to Todd Gracyk for sending this one to me!

• Ralph Stanley: banjo
• Jr. Blankenship: lead guitar
• Curly Ray Cline: fiddle, vocals
• Jack Cooke: bass
• Ernie Thacker: guitar

^{[1] http://www.oldtimemusic.com/otlinksR-I.html
[2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bottle_Up_and_Go}