Dear Mom - Letters to Heaven

Friday, August 18, 2017

Highway Call Album Review - Richard Betts, Chuck Leavell, Vassar Clements, John Hughey

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Highway Call is a great album that I absolutely love! I would use it on my radio show to segue in and out of a variety of themes and sets including the ABB, Blues, Blue Grass, Country and Rock and Roll. Whether it was Coltrane or Doc Watson, Lowell George or John Hartford, Duane, Elvin, Jerry, Chuck Berry, Jimi, Janis, John Hurt or Muddy Waters I could lay this wax down and spin in and out of whatever set I could dream up.

Playing this album like all the music I played and play was/is a labor of love. The versatility of the playing on this disc lent itself to any moment in time across the musical spectrum. I used the hell out of this album often pinning the needles so the public could hear the birds chirping at the end of Let Nature Sing. I respect and love this album deeply.

Dickey's in a reflective mood with his lyrics and playing and it’s a real celebration of living. The playing by everyone is beautiful, lyrical and pastoral very positive upbeat and it evokes the spirit of and respect for the environment that quite frankly this music all music springs out of as we do ourselves.

The musicianship is top shelf with Vassar Clements and Chuck Leavell just dancing and romping through the tracks affirming their taste skill and virtuosity. There is more than a touch of western swing as this music romps and all the musicians and singers get to stretch out. It’s just plain fun and the pedal steel brings it all back home.

Dickey's Highway Call a 1974 release is a vision that precedes the David Grissman Quintet by three years (1977). The reason I bring up DGQ is that group featured Tony Rice whose uncles the Poindexter’s are all over the Highway Call album.

The music is authentic kids the real deal dare I say Americana before there was that word. Tony’s brother Larry Rice toured with the Highway Call Band on the Great American Music Tour. So the Rice family was certainly tuned into this album as it was being made, after its release and subsequent tour. I am sure it affected Tony's approach not only to the DGQ but where he could take that high and lonesome sound beyond its Bill Monroe roots. Replace Chuck's piano runs with Tony's guitar and I think you see my meaning here.

Highway Call was a trail blazer of an album and actually charted on the Billboard charts so many people got to hear it and be influenced by what Vassar Clements called Hillbilly Jazz. Did I mention Vassar was on this album well let me mention it again and again and again. A hall of fame player in my mind he was fourteen years old when he started playing with Bill Monroe. And let’s not forget Dickey he’s a pickin’ and grinnin all over this thing. His ABB sensibilities are right there just below the surface without the Marshall amp roar but stylistically there and I say unabashedly this may be the best thing he has ever laid down.

Chuck’s playing is extensively all over this album as well and he is unleashed in much the same way he was with Jessica. If you love yourself some Chuck Leavell Brothers and Sisters you owe it to yourself to scoop this album up right now.

Get Highway Call back out and throw it in the player of your choice invite your friends over and have a barbecue while the weather is still nice and the grass is still green. It never fails to put a smile on my face and it’s a heavenly musical excursion. Hand me a tall one darlin'……

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