On a December night in 2002, three legends came together at the R.J. Reynolds Auditorium in Winston-Salem, North Carolina to record a PBS special.\u00a0 In doing so, Earl Scruggs, Doc Watson, and Ricky Skaggs for the first time brought their considerable talents together into one fireball of Appalachian music.\u00a0 The live album produced from this concert is the Grammy nominated Three Pickers.\u00a0 <\/i>Each of these artists is a paragon in their own right, and Earl Scruggs and Doc Watson, both around 80 years old at the time of the recording, still turn in a powerful performance despite their age.\u00a0 Scruggs singlehandedly changed the way the banjo is commonly played, and Doc Watson, though blind, is one of the best fingerpicking guitarists in the world.\u00a0 Ricky Skaggs is not as old as the other two, but since he started playing with the Stanley Brothers at the age of 17, he should probably be considered the youngest member of the first generation of bluegrass.\u00a0 He has managed to forge a successful career in both country and bluegrass music.\u00a0 Bringing them all together on one stage was surely a feat and a gift to traditional music fans everywhere.<\/p>\n
Three Pickers<\/i> is a cornucopia of classic traditional mountain and bluegrass music.\u00a0 Pulling from a repertoire of classics from Bill Monroe, the Carter Family and others, the three pickers resurrect and refresh many near forgotten songs and include several special guests including Alison Krauss, Doc\u2019s grandson Richard Watson, and Rob Ickes along the way.\u00a0 Several instrumentals pepper the album and demonstrate the picking proficiency that is the reason these three were brought together.\u00a0 \u201cEarl\u2019s Breakdown,\u201d and \u201cSoldier\u2019s Joy\u201d are classic instrumentals, and the Celtic flavored \u201cRoad To Spencer\u201d is a strong reminder of the roots of Appalachian traditional music which, before being played in the Blue Ridge Mountains was forged in Ireland and Scotland and then transported to America by Scotch-Irish immigrants who moved into the back country.\u00a0 <\/p>\n
In one interlude between songs, Scruggs discusses the development of his particular banjo playing style.\u00a0 He grew up in a family where his brothers played banjos as well, presumably from the story, in the claw hammer style of playing.\u00a0 Scruggs says that he simply could not move his fingers that way so he adopted a three finger roll to accomplish the same sound.\u00a0 In fact, this innovation changed banjo playing completely, since many pickers now prefer his style.<\/p>\n
\u201cWhat Would You Give In Exchange For Your Soul\u201d and \u201cWho Will Sing For Me\u201d fill in the gospel tracks that are almost obligatory for bluegrass albums, as does a version of \u201cDown In The Valley To Pray,\u201d led by Doc Watson.\u00a0 Watson recorded this track originally in the 1960\u2019s, but it was made famous by Alison Krauss on the Oh Brother, Where Art Thou<\/i> soundtrack as \u201cDown To The River To Pray.\u201d\u00a0 It is also worth noting that Watson\u2019s original \u201860s version and the one on Three Pickers<\/i> are lyrically correct, whereas the immensely popular version by Alison Krauss that was heard on Oh Brother<\/i> mangles the lyrics by implores us to go \u201cdown in the river to pray.\u201d\u00a0 Who goes down in<\/i> a river to pray? No one \u2013 unless you can\u2019t swim, in which case you are probably praying as you drown.\u00a0 But if you can\u2019t swim why would you end up in the river in the first place?\u00a0 It doesn\u2019t make much sense.\u00a0 You go to the river for baptizing, as the scene in the movie depicts while the song plays, but you go to the valley to pray.\u00a0 Perhaps in accepting the popular Krauss version we betray the fact that we have forgotten where to pray?\u00a0 At any rate, we can thank Doc for reminding us.<\/p>\n
Other stellar performances on the album include a Carter Family tune called \u201cThe Storms Are On The Ocean,\u201d which has beautiful harmonies contributed by Alison Krauss.\u00a0 Krauss also participates on the Watson led \u201cBanks Of The Ohio,\u201d which starts out sounding like the prettiest sappiest song you ever heard about a man and his true love and then hilariously turns into an account of a man\u2019s murder of his girlfriend due to a spurned marriage proposal.\u00a0 Barn burners \u201cRidin’ That Midnight Train\u201d and \u201cRoll In My Sweet Baby’s Arms\u201d would make the foot of someone who hates bluegrass instinctively tap.\u00a0 <\/p>\n
Three Pickers<\/i> is an excellent live album that serves as a sampler to for classic bluegrass and old-time mountain music.\u00a0 With the passing of Earl Scruggs on March 28, 2012, the bluegrass world lost another of the first generation of bluegrass musicians and another tie to the classic era was severed.\u00a0 Thankfully, this concert album will hold up for future generation to know the talent those musicians had.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":88,"featured_media":30903,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"artist":[8816],"rating":[5617],"class_list":["post-42582","review","type-review","status-publish","has-post-thumbnail","artist-earl-scruggs-doc-watson-ricky-skaggs","rating-rating-b-plus"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/review\/42582","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/review"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/review"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/88"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=42582"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/review\/42582\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/30903"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=42582"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"artist","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/artist?post=42582"},{"taxonomy":"rating","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/rating?post=42582"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}