Search - Rusty Richards :: Country Pioneer

Folk songs from latter-day Pioneer

hyperbolium | Earth, USA | 12/11/2002

(4 out of 5 stars)

"Richards is probably best known as a latter-day member of The Sons of the Pioneers. Having joined the group in 1963, his tenor quickly became an integral part of the Pioneers' legendary harmony singing. But a few years before, in 1959, Richards cut this solo debut for Jimmy Wakely's Shasta label, reproduced here with a handful of bonus tracks.The album's original title, "Folk Songs," spells out the song content. Recorded amid the folk-revival and story-song boom of the late-50s and early-60s, Richards sang traditional songs of British ("The Roving Gambler") and Scottish ("The Riddle Song") ancestry, as well as banjo-driven tunes like "Middle Hand Road" and soon-to-be folk-classics like "Sylvie" and country standards like "The Convict and the Rose." Bonus tracks on this reissue include surprisingly rockin' takes of Dallas Frazier's "Don't Let Me Down" and W.C. Handy's "St. Louis Blues."Richards has a blue-edge to his fine tenor (bringing to mind one of the 50s first folk-revivalists, Bob Gibson, among others), and was accompanied on this outing by some of Los Angeles' best studio-hands. The guitarists include Neil Levang (who waxed studio dates with Duane Eddy, Dean Martin and Elvis, and found great success with Lawrence Welk), Roy Lanham (who played with the Burnettes, Johnny Horton and The Browns, and who joined the Sons of the Pioneers in 1961), and ace flat-picker and banjoist Joe Maphis. Legendary steel player Noel Boggs added his twang, and Richards showed himself to be no slouch as a player, flat-picking his acoustic for "China Nights."Those who came to know Richards through his work with The Sons of the Pioneers will enjoy this peek at his earlier work, and fans of folk-revivalists like the Kingston Trio, Burl Ives and Chad Mitchell will certainly cotton to this rare gem."