Les Woodie And Friends - More Pickin' Les Singing

(Major MRLP-3067) 1979
Reissued on CD (Major ) c2000.

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This album by Les Woodie 'and Friends' is well produced, with a fairly good selection of material, and top notch instrumentation. Lester's lead vocals have a crooner feel and are quite pleasant. His fiddle work is also expressive, bluesy, and hasn't lost any of finesse in the 30-or-so years since he recorded with the Stanley Brothers.

The 'Friends' on the record consist of:- Stan Dudley, who recorded with Lester on the LPs Something Old & Something New In Bluegrass, and 'The Last Letter: Featuring Juanita'; Carl Clark & Ken Bentley from Tunstall Trio, who Lester was working with since 1976; Steve Wilson who'd played with Lester on the Roby Huffman & the Bluegrass Cutups 'Colorado River' LP and later played on The Tunstall Trio's 'Up stepped Jesus' LP; and James Bailey & Spider Gilliam from the then current line-up of the Country Gentlemen. Lester son, Greg Woodie is also credited on drums, though he's either very low in the mix, or isn't featured on most of the tracks.

The album opens with Les Woodie's upbeat, Your Love Is Key To It All, which has smart lyrics and a bouncy melody. Les sings lead on the verses with harmony on the choruses, and the love song has some fine melodic banjo and dobro.

Three of Les' songs have quite humourous lyrics with: Picker's Paradise being about a picker's heaven where "Strings will never break..." / "Notes can never go wrong" / "Keys are never too high" etc.; Break Clean (And Come Out Swinging), about a combatitive 'naggin' relationship that uses boxing metaphors; and I Couldn't See The Forest For The Trees, which is a kind of parable on the desire for a relationship and relationship failure which goes full circle.

The album includes three instrumentals: Appomattox, which is a slowish fiddle instrumental, with a military drum and spoken word intro about surrender of the Confederate army at Appomattox Court House in 1865; Carolina Cotton, a reasonably catchy uptempo fiddle instrumental, with somewhat-flashy banjo break and laid back dobro; and I'll Be All Smiles, a laid back waltz with dobro and a more energetic fiddle.

Two other tracks are mainly instrumental, with the lengthy Papa's Old Fiddle by Bobby Crews featuring snippets of old fiddle tunes woven into the tune. Part recitation / part song, the track is about reflecting on childhood memories of learning music from his father.

The the 5 ½ min Railroadin' uses the same technique of recycling parts of old train tunes like Orange Blossom Special and Freight Train, along with a recording of a steam train and a spoken word intro.

The album concludes with Les' Gospel song The Pearly Gate, which is another fine effort with some nice lead guitar from Steve Wilson.

As Ralph Stanley says on the liner notes "If you like good, solid bluegrass music, I'm sure you'll enjoy this album".

The LP was apparently reissued on CD (or CD-R) circa 2000.

• Les Woodie: fiddle, lead vocal
• James Bailey: banjo, mandolin
• Ken Bentley: tenor vocals
• Carl Clark: guitar, baritone vocal
• Stan Dudley: guitar
• Spider Gilliam: bass
• Steve Wilson: dobro, flatop
• Greg Woodie: drums

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