Customer Reviews
Average Customer Review
(14 customer reviews) 9 of 9 people found the following review helpful
Sammy!,
August 24, 2010 OH Packerfan "Go Pack Go" (Cincinnati, OH United States) - See all my reviews
This review is from: Circles Around Me (Audio CD)
Another great disk by Sam. I hesitated to purchase this one, simply because I own all of Sam's disks, & frankly was begining to feel that the creative juices may have begun to run dry just a bit. Don't get me wrong, Laps in Seven & King of My World are fine, fine disks, better than 99.9% of stuff out there, but they seem to be strained a bit at times. It seemed to me - right or wrong - that Sam was straining for a hit.
This one, by contrast, feels completely relaxed. Sam is entirely at home with this material. It is as if he is putting on a comfortable old pair of well worn boots. His pacing is just right. Oh, he can still let it rip, as he does, for instance, in Blue Mountain. But more often than not, he lets the songs set their own pace. On Souveneir Bottles, for instance, first released decades ago on Barren County, he keeps the synchopated style while avoiding the choppiness of the original. Old North Woods has the relaxed feel of the Grisman/Garcia albums, or maybe the...Read more
10 of 11 people found the following review helpful
Primo Sammy,
October 21, 2009 Cain Knobel "nerd" (Colorado) - See all my reviews
This review is from: Circles Around Me (Audio CD)
The short review of "Circles Around Me" is this release is newgrass through and through and sounds as much like classic Sam Bush. Never mind the jazz/rock numbers of the past couple CDs, they were good, this music is where Sam's heart lives even it likes to stray from time to time. This release is to be added to "Howlin' At the Moon" and "Glamour and Grits" to the must haves in the Sam Bush library. Every track, from the instrumentals that are bit more progressive, to the Monroe covers are worthy of many listens. It's good the King has found his way back home.
10 of 12 people found the following review helpful
Another great album from Sam Bush,
October 31, 2009 Walter Windish - See all my reviews
Amazon Verified Purchase(What's this?)
This review is from: Circles Around Me (Audio CD)
Although I don't always agree with all his lyrics, I always enjoy his material. I've got all the Newgrass stuff on vinyl and am a fan of the mandolin.
Speaking of vinyl, the tune "Apple Blossom" was recorded in 1976 and features a duet between Sam on Fiddle and the late Newgrass Revival banjo man Courtney Johnson. It's a short, but sweet instrumental, followed directly, on track 13 with "Souvenir Bottles," which first appeared on their 1979 album "Barren County." This 8+ minute version has a great guitar, banjo, mandolin solo. Sweet.
The title track is a nice mellow piece. "Diamond Joe" starts off like "8 More Miles to Louisville," but is a nice up tempo vocal. "You left me alone" has got some nice banjo/mando work in the context of an upbeat broken-heart song. "The Old North Woods" is a 4 minute sweat instrumental with nice banjo and mandolin lines and a bowed cello adding a bit of extra mellow.
"The Ballad of Stringbean and Estelle" is a...Read more
