Friday, August 21, 2009

Tasty Licks

For all you hungry bluegrass fans out there, I have a treat, a tasty one. This next album was among my early favorites in the bluegrass realm. Back when I was able to frequent festivals and keep up with every issue of Bluegrass Unlimited, the band, Tasty Licks, and it's first album (self titled) was a frequent flier on my turntable and car stereo. They have such a unique vocal sound. Jack Tottle and Robin Kincaid both having rather high registers to their voices, yet the results are so natural and relaxed. Of course, with Bela Fleck anchoring the banjo licks on this team, there is plenty of spice and surprises to make for a great bundle of old fashioned bluegrass and exciting new fangled fun. You'll hear some incredible dobro work from Stacy Phillips and bass fiddle man Paul Kahn adds the bottom parts instrumentally and vocally with great aplomb. All in all a real classic in my book. Every song is solid stuff although I am always a sucker for a good cover and I think "Listen To The Rhythm of the Fallin' Rain" is a blast. "Sweetheart of Rainy Days" (by Kincaid) is another killer tune. Ultimately I find the whole album to be a non-stop hit. You'll note a lot of unusual twists to the rhythm throughout many of the songs, odd syncapation that keeps you on your toes. "Lathe Machine" is a very enjoyable instrumental and there's also a wonderful gospel treatment on "If You Don't Love Your Neighbor". I hope you will enjoy getting a taste of what these guys were way back in the late seventies. These were some of the guys responsibile for the relative revolution in bluegrass that we witnessed at the time, right up there with beer can collecting, except much better and here to stay thankfully!

Lix

Tasty Licks - (Self-Titled) - 1978
Rounder 0106

Ridin' The Back Road
Sweet Rhythm Of Highway
Reading in the Dark
Maize
Listen to the Rhythm of the Fallin' Rain
Trains/Leavin' Tennessee

Make It All Right
Sweetheart of Rainy Days
Lathe Machine
Why Did You Say Goodbye
If You Don't Love Your Neighbor
Saturday Night Special

Jack Tottle - vocals & mandolin
Robin Kincaid - tenor vocals & guitar
Bela Fleck - banjo
Stacy Phillips - dobro
Paul Kahn - vocals & acoustic bass
Bobby Hicks - fiddle ("Sweetheart.." & "Sweet Rhythm...")

9 comments:

Anonymous said...

Thank you - I didn't know this album. I thought they only made "Anchored to the Shore" which I used to have on tape.Any chance you got it?

Durge & The Oldies said...

I'm afraid I don't...yet. I hope to get it one of these days...sorry.

Anonymous said...

wow!
thank you!

Durge & The Oldies said...

Glad you like it!!

OldHippieRick said...

Old Hippie here to check out your blog and not bad very nice selections and well informed om all LP's I'll check back here soon there were a few that interested me..oh I already have Tasty Licks just use there comment box to say way cool..
Rick from http://oldhippierick.blogspot.com/

Durge & The Oldies said...

Hey Rick and thanks for the visit and nice words. Very glad to have you stop in after I enjoyed visiting your own blog so much the past couple of days. I have some work to do to beef up the blog here, a little at a time. Hope you do find a few items of interest here.

Anonymous said...

Unbelievable, but the link to Bela's first vinyl is still alive! Thanks!
Armando

Anonymous said...

Arkriver, I may have missed something or be digitally "slow" but how do I convert downloaded files into music? I'm excited to hear a few oldies that mean a lot to me, so thanks for providing access to these OOPs.

Brad in Michigan

Durge & The Oldies said...

Hello Anon. If I follow you, you're just not sure what to do with the files you download from this blog. It should be very much the same as most music blogs. You should end up with a folder/file which is a data compression format called ".RAR". If you don't have the software/program for handling RAR then it's very easy to download, and it's free, a very universally accepted format. Just Google it and you'll see dozens of trustworthy sites where you can download it quickly and without any charges. Once you have the program installed you should be able to double click on any RAR file, like the ones I provide. It opens a window that asks you if you want to save the contents on your computer, and where? You should be able to easily follow the directions and transfer all the compressed files inside the folder into a standard folder on your computer where you will find the music files you seek (in my case they will be MP3 files, usually at 320kbps. I hope that helps. Good luck and thanks for stopping in!