I’ll be driving alone for two long days. I’d like to listen to great mandolin music as the miles roll by. What are your favorite road trip albums? Any genre
I’ll be driving alone for two long days. I’d like to listen to great mandolin music as the miles roll by. What are your favorite road trip albums? Any genre
Eastman 815 f
Northfield Calhoun
Saga kit campfire/travel mando
Music Makers Dakota
Not mandolin specific but I recently got the Jimmy Martin and Osborne Bros box sets and that is my plan for an upcoming road trip. Tone poems is a good album, Bluegrass Mando Extravaganza, David Grisman did an album with Tommy Emmanuel recently, and of course Bill Monroe, McReynolds Bros, Stanley Bros…so many. There is prob some really nice jazz from Don Steirnberg and Paul Glasse, Brian Oberlin and Evan Marshall are two monster players.
Northfield F5M #268, AT02 #7
Dave Apollon would take you there and back!
Rags, Breakdowns, Stomps & Blues: Vintage Mandolin Music 1927-1946 (Document Records)
Robert Johnson's mother, describing blues musicians:
"I never did have no trouble with him until he got big enough to be round with bigger boys and off from home. Then he used to follow all these harp blowers, mandoleen (sic) and guitar players."
Lomax, Alan, The Land where The Blues Began, NY: Pantheon, 1993, p.14.
Depends where you're driving, but if it's two long days, I'm assuming you'll be passing through some rural terrain. I really enjoy Bill Frisell's album "Nashville" for trips like this. It does feature a mandolin, but I really like the playing of Bill Frisell on a very clean toned electric guitar. The album is sort of minimalist and has a lot of space and works really well on road trips.
I really got into Adam Steffey’s New Primitive on the way home from The Wenatchee festival a few years ago. The speeding ticket took the fun out of it
Not all the clams are at the beach
Arrow Manouche
Arrow Jazzbo
Arrow G
Clark 2 point
Gibson F5L
Gibson A-4
Ratliff CountryBoy A
All three of Andrew Marlin's "solo" albums.
"Keep your hat on, we may end up miles from here..." - Kurt Vonnegut
Girouard Concert A5
Girouard Custom A4
Nordwall Cittern
Barbi Mandola
Crump OM-1s Octave
www.singletonstreet.com
Dave Apollon - The Man With the Mandolin - ACD-27
Tiny Moore & Jethro Burns - Back to Back - ACD - 60
Bob Douglas - Just Tunes - House of Mercy Recordings MR041
The Mando Boys Live - Holstein Lust - Borderland Productions BLP02
Rags, Breakdowns Stomps & Blues
Those are my essentials. But I also listen to a lot of non-mandolin music while driving too.
Brentrup Model 23, Boeh A5 #37, Gibson A Jr., Flatiron 1N, Coombe Classical flattop, Strad-O-Lin
https://www.facebook.com/LauluAika/
https://www.lauluaika.com/
https://www.facebook.com/Longtine-Am...14404553312723
Not mandolin specific, but some content:
Steam Powered Aeroplane - John Hartford
Tales from the Acoustic Planet, The Bluegrass Sessions, vol 2 - Bela Fleck and all star cast (Hartford, Douglas, Clements, Bush, Scruggs, Rice and more)
Breakdown - Old and in the Way
Girouard A
Silverangel A
Eastman 615
Mike Marshall "Choro Fasoso".....
https://www.amazon.com/Mike-Marshall.../dp/B00022XEH2
It will put the drive in "Drive".
Charley
A bunch of stuff with four strings
Oft mentioned here:
David Grisman's double record "Home Is Where The Heart Is" (honorable mention to "Here Today")
Tony Rice: "Manzanita"
What I play
2021 Skip Kelley Two-Point
Eastwood 'Ricky'
Morgan Monroe RT-1E
Epiphone Genesis guitars
Various Basses
Our vehicle, a newer Equinox, doesn't have a CD player. It does have a USB port for a thumb drive. One of my projects during the pandemic was to take a 32 GB thumb drive and down load a whole bunch of CDs. The media player allows you to select by genre. I like to set it to shuffle so it randomly selects the cut. Well over 600 tunes in Bluegrass genre plus more in Celtic and Jazz and even some older Country.
Back to the original question I listen to anything by Butch Baldassari often. An older recording that I just purchased (should have bought it long ago) is Jethro Burns' Swing Low Sweet Mandolin. A cool listen every time..
Ratliff R5 2007, Capek A5 2003, Washburn M5S-SB Jethro Burns 1982, Mid-Mo M-2, Epiphone MM 30 Bk mandolins, Harmony Batwing 1970's, George Bauer bowlback early 1900's Philadelphia.
"Don't cloud the issue with facts!" Groucho Marx
If you are interested in some purely mellow and feel-good music, which can work for good traveling, Mandolin Orange (now called Watchhouse) definitely works. I would start with the album "This Side of Jordan", which is personally my all-time favorite album (and that's saying something, considering I am 74 years old and remember listening to music in the early and mid '50s). Follow that up with the albums "Such Jubilee", "Blindfaller", "Tides of a Teardrop", and then their earlier ones such as "Quiet Little Room" and "Haste Make/Hard Hearted". Just so many great songs, and there is joy and wisdom and fun in their music. As for individual songs from those albums--so, so many good ones. I particularly love "Ships Sail Away", "Jump Mountain Blues", and "Waltz About Whiskey on Ice", but you just cannot go wrong with any of their music. I am excited to get their first album as Watchhouse. ...Old Dog Dave
Another vote for Mazanita, also David Grisman Quintet "Dawganova"
Just got back from my first road trip in a while. I'd brought along some stuff, but didn't listen to any of it. I make plans along those lines, but rarely follow through. Long hours spent away from the usual entertainment options create an environment for mental exercises - running songs through my head, working out arrangements, ideas about instrumentation, harmonies, timing the length of songs, etc., etc.
But one thing I discovered, when I got tired enough to take a break but was too wired to catch a nap, one of the albums I'd brought with me did the trick really well: "Infrared Roses" by Grateful Dead. It's a collection of several space jams. They're actually pretty interesting, but since there's no steady beat and they're pretty abstract, they lead into Dreamland pretty easily. Just find the right volume level - loud enough that listening isn't a strain, but quiet enough that they don't catch your interest. Hey - this is a facet of a road trip you shouldn't overlook.
But that's just my opinion. I could be wrong. - Dennis Miller
Furthering Mandolin Consciousness
Finders Keepers, my duo with the astoundingly talented and versatile Patti Rothberg. Our EP is finally done, and available! PM me, while they last!
I once took a winter night "shortcut" through some backcountry roads in WV listening to that album (and the similar Twilight Zone album the dead recorded for the 80s remake). I was trying to cut out about 50 miles of what looked like backtracking from the middle of the Shenandoah valley to Snowshoe WV. The print out from mapquest told me to drive down almost all the way to roanoke before turning around and heading north again, so I decided that a AAA map and my own ingenuity could outsmart the computer.
4+ hours of switchbacks, one-lane roads, middle-of no where towns without cross streets, and seeing more deer in the roads than cars, I ended a pretty surreal drive that I still remember about 20 years later. Pretty sure the music was half of the weirdness but I'm also not entirely sure I wasn't in a Stephen King story for a few hours, because it really shouldn't have taken that long and there's no way that my impeccable sense of direction could be at fault.
--
Back to the original question, but I'd say Hot Rize's self-titled album is some good driving music, and I've yet to find a situation that isn't made better by Del McCoury Band. If you're into fiddle tunes and dawg music, I have a 5+ hour instrumental Spotify playlist of tunes that I've played/tried to learn/half forgotten that is one of my favorite back-roads driving playlists.
https://open.spotify.com/playlist/3b...25a59dc97348f0
It does indeed sound like you slipped into the Twilight Zone ...
But that's just my opinion. I could be wrong. - Dennis Miller
Furthering Mandolin Consciousness
Finders Keepers, my duo with the astoundingly talented and versatile Patti Rothberg. Our EP is finally done, and available! PM me, while they last!
All of the CDs by Joe K. Walsh, & John Reischman
Although it's by no means new "Bluegrass Mandolin Extravaganza"
If you're headed south....anything by Paul Glasse
Last edited by doc holiday; Jun-07-2021 at 2:44pm.
How about Road Trip by John Reischman and John Miller
https://youtu.be/9kgBms3CaAM
Northfield NF-5S
Sawchyn Beaver Tail
Eastman MD 605
Eastwood Mandocaster
Hora Irish Bouzouki
One From the Vault - Grateful Dead
Paul
Weber Custom Vintage A
Alvarez A-100
'82 Fender Bullet (USA)
'55 Harmony Master Model
'62 Harmony Tenor Guitar
I try not to listen to too much stuff that gets my mandolin fingers twitching.
So my tracklist is all mixed up with reggae, straight ahead Scottish ceilidh bands, Greek music, obscure soul, sensitive singer-songwriter etc.
Lately albums , mostly non-vocal, from the latter part of Dr John's recording career are favourites for driving or working.
Duke Elegant
In a Sentimental Mood
Mercernary
Dr John plays Mac Rebennack
Skat dat de dat
etc
But there are many great piano licks and melodies in there that would transfer to mandolin, so the twitching starts again ...
Bren
I agree if you can do MP3 you can load days worth of music, it just depends do you want energetic singing that keeps you motivated, or do you want background that colors the trip ? maybe both
lot of great suggestions up here, its all a matter of taste.
For me I like a good set of instrumentals, but mixing in songs helps break up the monotony
Peter Ostroushko & Dean McGraw - The Duo already has this setup but its only an hour of music
Stormy Morning Orchestra
My YouTube Channel
"Mean Old Timer, He's got grey hair, Mean Old Timer he just don't care
Got no compassion, thinks its a sin
All he does is sit around an play the Mandolin"
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