Search - Nitty Gritty Dirt Band :: Stars & Stripes Forever

Very Good, Mixed with VERY Bad.

Solomon Kane | United States | 02/15/2008

(4 out of 5 stars)

"I loved the NGDB back in their "jug band/bluegrass/eclectic rock" days (before they went mainstream and began sucking with a vengeance), and this is an album I've always mostly enjoyed a lot.

The music is great... kickin' versions of classics like "Mr. Bojangles", "Buy for me the Rain", "Diggy Liggy Lo", "Battle of New Orleans", "Jambalaya". Funny songs like "GloCoat Blues", "The Fish Song", "Cosmic Cowboy". Fabulous fiddling from Mr. Vassar Clements throughout, and excellent bluegrass instrumentals.

The "interviews" are less successful, but are still interesting, for the most part.

Now we come to the two cuts that both make and break this album...

"The Mountain Whippoorwill"... Oh man, the rest of this album could even have been "(c)rap" and I'd have given it 5 stars just for this cut! A brilliant interpretation by John McEuen. With his muted delivery and old-timey banjo accompaniment, he makes this wonderful poem by Stephen Vincent Benet (one of my top 5 all-time favorite poems) really come to life. An amazing, spellbinding piece of live music. Unfortunately, it's more than counterbalanced by:

"It Came from the 50's (Blast from the Past)". One of the most misbegotten attempts at "humour" I've ever heard. So adolescent and unfunny that it transcends stupidity and just becomes pathetic and sad. Sure, 14-year olds might have sniggered at this during the early '70's (I didn't- I thought it was embarassing even back then... when I WAS 14!), but that doesn't make it funny. Almost unlistenable, I hate this cut so much that the album overall loses 1 star.

Other than that, I highly recommend this one, along with "Uncle Charlie and His Dog Teddy" as THE two quintessential NGDB recordings."

Nitty Gritty Dirt Band

Mr. Lorna D. Boyd | 05/02/2009

(5 out of 5 stars)

"Excellent cd. For fans of the Dirt Band, I think this is a "must have" cd."

Stars and Stripes Forever

J. Lindner | Gem Lake, MN United States | 10/31/2009

(5 out of 5 stars)

"I first bought this on vinyl many, many years ago. The songs, at least some of them, are the kinds that find their way into your head no matter how long it's been since you last heard them..Having said that, I decided I needed to buy this disc so I could finally hear what I'd been humming to for years (off and on). Once I received my disc it brought back all the enjoyable memories from way, way back.



This band knows how to work an audience. Funny monologues are combined with what was their limited repertoire of the early 1970s. Hits would come later but at this point the band played the music of other artists with smatterings of their own material. But there was in place the connections with each other that would lead to those future hit songs.



This is not a typical "live" album as it breaks up and drifts between two diffeent live venues and a "live" studio session. But the end result is worth putting up with the disjointedness of the album. This is a must have for any fan of the Nitty Gritty Dirt Band."