I dug out the ol;d vinyl LPs and may have solved the Eric Weissberg question. On their second Vanguard album, "Ragged But Right", Eric Weissberg played bass. As to whether he ever performed with the group outside of the recording studio is something I would not know. I can't keep my eyes off of the dust covers of these old records. They did some great songs. If anyone is intereswted, their first album also included Buddy Pendleton on fiddle and Jack Cook on bass. One of my favorites on that album is 'Rosie's Gone Again'.

Their third Vanguard release was "Better Late Than Never" and was recorded after Ralph Rinzler left. Mando-maniac Frank Wakefield plays on this one, as well as Jim Buchanan on the fiddle and Russ Savakus on the bass.

About two years ago I tried to get a copy of the CD "Best of John Herald and the Greenbriar Boys" and it took a lot of work. The shjops couldn't find a distributor who carried it, and I made several phone calls to Vanguard. I finally was able to talk with someone who tracked down a copy and I got it in the mail.

One of the video releases of the old Pete Seeger "Rainbow" show features the Greenbriar's as they appeared on that third album. It is a lot of fun to watch, but a friend of mine told me that they have pulled all of those videos out of distribution, also.

Consequently, about a month ago a friend of mine was on a bluegrass web site and people were doing the same thread. Bob Yellin thanked all for the compliments. The next response was to try to get a campaign to get Vanguard to release the old stuff again.

Yellin's response was that it was very unlikely.

That led me to wonder how difficult it would be to purchase the masters of some of these old beloved groups and rerelease them ones self. Maybe that could be a new thread?