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Published on Jul-31-2018 7:15am
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Feast Here Tonight is a two record compilation, issued by RCA Bluebird in 1975, of the pioneering 1930s duo recordings by Bill and Charlie Monroe. As a teenage Northern California bluegrass geek, Adam Tanner immersed himself in Feast and in Bill Monroe's early sound, chock full of long lines of tremolo, rhythmic stabs of melody and explorations of the chop, which, by 1945, would define the style.
But it was a live Monroe take, recorded with Doc Watson on April 18, 1964, at Oberlin College, of an original called "Lonesome Moonlight Waltz," that would be a game changer for Tanner, who found, in its minor key groove, the European roots of the instrument — not the familiar Scots Irish fiddle tunes of the southern hills, but the ethereal, off-kilter keen of the Balkans and the trilling Italian origins of the mandolin.
It's those elements that inform Tanner's new disc, A State of Grace, which also nods to influential works like the ethnic Americana of Andy Statman's Flatbush Waltz and the composed, fully-arranged grace of the undersung Norman Blake-led Original Underground Music from the Mysterious South.
Tanner, who plays old time fiddle, guitar and mandolin, spent much of the early 90s grinding out loud, politically radical
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