Melvin Goins & Windy Mountain - Light In The Window Again

(Rooster Records No #) 2002

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This is a CD-R on Melvin's own 'Rooster Records' label which was recorded at Tom T. & Dixie Hall's home studio in Franklin, Tennessee and mixed at River Track Studio, Fort Gay, West Virginia.

Only John McNeely is still present from the 1999 line-up of Melvin's band as featured on Bluegrass Blues, and the personnel is similar to that included on 2004's I Wouldn't Miss It CD.

Four of the tracks are Dixie & Tom T. Hall originals: Light In The Window Again, a nostalgic slowish 3/4 waltz about leaving for the city & subsequently returning after some time to the old home place; Creecy Greens, an uptempo piece with clawhammer banjo; Fifty Years, which looks back at the five decades Melvin has spent on the road playing bluegrass; and Talking To The Birds which has some neat banjo & mandolin work.

Melvin sings lead on seven tracks, plus the spoken word Number 11 Tragedy; John McNeely sings lead on Slowly; and either Billy Rose or Chris Miller sing lead on We Live In Two Different Worlds & Down In Old St. Cloud (though who sings which song I can't tell!).

The Lonesome Pine Fiddlers' get a nod with a version of Brown Eyed Darlin'. This is I think the fourth time Melvin re-recorded the song...

The album has two instrumental, Don Reno's Hen Scratch And Stomp and Bill Emmerson/Doyle Lawson's Welcome To New York. Both have fine banjo & mandolin.

Number 11 Tragedy is the weakest track on the album, with Melvin's spoken work recital of coincidences taken from the internet about the number 11 and the Al-Qaeda terrorist attacks from 11 Sept 2001, backed by America The Beautiful.

The artwork on this one is laser-printed, with a rather crudely put together front cover photo montage.

• Melvin Goins: guitar, vocals
• Danny Cripple: bass
• John McNeely: guitar, vocal
• Chris Miller: mandolin
• Greg Moore: fiddle
• Billy Rose: banjo

Other artwork / related images: