Summertowne Road - S/T

(Rounder 11661-0646-2) Feb 2010

---

This album, which was produced by Don Rigsby, features a finely-polished selection of 14 modern bluegrass songs.

The band were formed in early-2008 when John Rigsby and Jack Hicks were playing out their notice with Melvin Goins; and Bo Isaac & Randy Thomas were finishing off bookings with Bo Isaac & the Wheelrights.^[1] Recordings for the album had already begun before their first gig in Sept 2008, and by Feb 2009 they were expecting the album to be released by Rounder "in the next couple of months".^[2]

The CD must have been delayed however, as the album wasn't released until a year later on 16 Feb 2010, and by the time of it's release John Rigsby had already left the band.^{[3] [4]} Jack too had also departed by August 2010^[5], about 6 months before the CD was reviewed in the Feb 2011 edition of 'Bluegrass Unlimited'.

One track from the album, If I Win appeared in Bluegrass Unlimited's Top 30 singles chart for six months, between Aug-2010 and Feb-2011, peaking at No. 17.

Although formed on a 4-part equal basis, John Rigsby and Jack Hicks had more of a pedigree as sidemen, with Jack having spent 3-4 years working for Bill Monroe (1971-74), as well as Jim & Jesse, Del Reeves, Buck White, Lester Flatt, Sony James, and finally a 9 year spell mainly playing steel guitar with Conway Twitty.^[6]

Their name 'Summertowne Road' was chosen from the Marty Raybon song on his 2003 'Full Circle' CD.

The album kicks off with a more traditional sounding song, If I Win, which John Rigsby co-wrote with his wife Lisa and Jack Hicks, 'about a dissolving marriage, set in a courtroom and a bar'. John: I started that in Ralph days. That thing was in my mandolin case forever and I'd forgotten about it. My wife added a couple of lines to it and I forgot about it again. We needed a fast song for this recording. It didn't have a last verse so Jack started feeding me lyrics, right in the studio. It's just a typical, hard driving bluegrass song.

In addition to fiddle & mandolin, John also sings lead vocal on 7 tracks, and provides the clawhammer banjo intro to Dennie Braden. One of the tracks, on which he sings lead & harmony, You're Not Easy To Forget, is a slow soulful number which had been previously been recorded by the Red Allen, Al Jones & Frank Necessary, Sawtooth Mountain Boys and Black Mountain Bluegrass Boys.

Fiddlin' John by Jack Hicks and Shayla Huffman is a light-hearted song which is loosely about John, with a medley of snippets of fiddle tunes. Jack:- "We decided to write a song about John Rigsby; I think a whole lot of his fiddling. I got the idea to work in a bunch of fiddle tunes like 'Sally Goodin', 'Old Joe Clark', and 'Katy Hill'".

Hide Me Rock Of Ages, which closes the CD also features John Rigsby on lead vocal. Ralph also cut this hymn on his 1971 LP Old Country Church, but that may just be coincidental. Summertowne Road's version has a more straight forward arrangement.

The instrumental Goin' Home To See My Baby dates back to the '70s when Jack Hicks was playing with The Whites & was co-written by Sharon White. It features Jack Hicks showing off various banjo styles / influences from Eddie Adcock, Alan Munde, Bela Fleck, Jimmy Arnold and "the almost extinct classical banjo style that Andy Boarman used to play in early festival jam sessions".

That's Kentucky is a fairly typical Tom T. Hall / Dixie Hall song, with a range of bucolic/stereotypical Kentucky references worked into a feel-good radio-friendly song.

Many of the tracks have a contemporary bluegrass feel, particularly with Jack Hicks banjo & song arrangements. Rosalee is a murder ballad with some heavy banjo-riffs; Too Much Of A Good Thing, about possesive/coercive relationships has some soaring vocal / harmonies; and For The Love Of The Game by Bo Isaac, sounds like a cross between I've Always Been A Rambler and Chris Stapleton / The Steeldrivers fare, again with John Rigsby on lead vocals.

The album was produced by Don Rigsby, who also appears on Two Medals playing mandola & bongos. This cut is a slow emotional tale on the aftermath of war and it's effects on the child of a soldier who didn't come home, and the fellow comrade / best friend who did.

The CD comes with a 12-page booklet, with liner notes by Fred Bartenstein, which gives background details of the band members, a run down of each track's origins and who plays what, along with the usual credits.

Other artwork / related images:

[1] https://bluegrasstoday.com/summertown-road-construction-complete/
[2] https://bluegrasstoday.com/tracking-summertown-road/
[3] https://bluegrasstoday.com/summertown-road-in-2010/
[4] https://bluegrasstoday.com/zach-rambo-goes-down-summertown-road/
[5] https://bluegrasstoday.com/elmer-burchett-to-summertown-road/
[6] Neil V. Rosenberg and Charles K. Wolfe's book 'The Music of Bill Monroe" p.165