Info: Greenbriar Boys

Subject: greenbriar boys
From: thosp
Date: 23 Jun 99 - 10:43 PM

does anyone know where i can find cd's cassetts etc. on the greenbriar boys (esp. dian and the greenbriar boys) i been searching for a long time -- and haven't found a thing

Subject: RE: greenbriar boys
From: Sandy Paton
Date: 24 Jun 99 - 12:03 AM

Have a look here Vanguard Bluegrass catalog. Just scroll down a bit from the top; the titles are alphabetical.

Sandy

Subject: RE: greenbriar boys
From: Tiger
Date: 24 Jun 99 - 06:49 AM

I've managed to get a couple of these over the years. Some of my favorite cuts:

Amelia Earhart's Last Flight
Shackles and Chains
I Heard the Bluebirds Sing

Subject: RE: greenbriar boys
From: Rockaday Johnny
Date: 24 Jun 99 - 09:05 AM

Dian & Greenbriar Boys is an lp Ive been after for years also - It was released on Elektra and predated the Vanguard recordings I just missed a copy on Ebay that went for $30 + so good luck -The only CD is "The Best of" which is great and should be easily found in cutout bins these days

Subject: RE: greenbriar boys
From: Rasta
Date: 25 Jun 99 - 01:29 AM

Now were talkin . Not quite the same as the Kingston trio but just as good. I think the original banjo man was Eric Weisburg but later replaced by Bob Yellin. If you can find a copy of an album called New Folks , they do three cuts on that album with the Late Ralph Rinzler on mandolin and John Hearald on guitar who still plays gigs.--the album also had Hedy West (500 miles) Jackie Washington and Dave Gude or guide all nice cuts. they have it in CD form. ---Diane had no eyebrows , Im sure she is or was a groovy person though because after all its whats inside that counts--I would love to find a copy of the original Vanguard album (The Greenbriar Boys) with nine poud hammer. Nuff said Rastaaaaaa

Subject: RE: greenbriar boys
From: thosp
Date: 27 Jun 99 - 05:30 PM

i've tried all the above suggesstions (thanks all) but i still haven't had any luck --- i'm hoping for some more info -----

Subject: RE: greenbriar boys
From: JOField
Date: 27 Jun 99 - 06:35 PM

I b'lieve "Dion and the Greenbrier Boys" was after the original Greenbrier Boys album -- by a few years. That band had a real effect on all us city bluegrassers. The first New Yawkah to really spread the bluegrass news was Roger Sprung, but the Greenbrier Boys carried the message all over the Northeast and then the country.

James.

Subject: RE: greenbriar boys
From: Art Thieme
Date: 28 Jun 99 - 03:03 PM

Rasta,

Could you be confusing the Greenbriar Boys with THE TARRIERS?? I know weisberg was with the Tarriers before "Dueling Banjos" made him famous (if not infamous for makin' a bundle with someone else's song).

Art

Subject: RE: greenbriar boys
From: dick greenhaus
Date: 28 Jun 99 - 03:35 PM

From memory: Erik DARLING (not Weissberg) was with the Tarriers, along with Bob Carey and Clarence Cooper.

The Greenbrier Boys started out with Bob Yellin, John Herald and Paul Prestopino.

Things changed.

Subject: RE: greenbriar boys
From: Art Thieme
Date: 29 Jun 99 - 12:53 AM

Darling was with the Tarriers when they had their hits, "The Banana Boat Song"("Day-O"), And "Cindy, Oh, Cindy" (Down by the seaside sifting sand...) in the 1950s.

Erik Darling, from my memory (which aint to good lately), then joined THE WEAVERS when Pete left. That made room for Eric Weisberg to join The Tarriers. I saw them at the new Gate Of Horn in Chicago with Weisberg after the original Gate burnt down. The new club was a spruced up fancy nightclub at the State St. and Rush St. conjunction. Had big pretensions and plush carpets. Bar downstairs and show room upstairs. The new Gate was to the old Gate what Ricky Whats-his-name is to Pete Seeger.

Art

Subject: RE: greenbriar boys
From: woody
Date: 29 Jun 99 - 01:09 AM

I've got the Electra LP EKL-233, Dian James,vocals, John Herald, guitar; Bob Yellin, banjo; Ralph Rinzler, mandolin. Sez here, Dian James...born in New York City, raised in Hollywood and on numerous movie locations around the country...played her first featured role at the age of 13(The Bachelor and The Bobbysoxer)...got lotsa eyebrows!!!

Subject: RE: greenbriar boys
From: woody
Date: 29 Jun 99 - 01:31 AM

That's lotsa eyebrow....and lotsa eyeshadow!!!

woody

Subject: RE: greenbriar boys
From: thosp
Date: 29 Jun 99 - 09:02 PM

to woody ! that's great !!! you have the record --- is there any way that i could get a copy (cassette) ? or ? --- i can't believe i'm this close !

Subject: RE: greenbriar boys
From: Bill D
Date: 29 Jun 99 - 09:59 PM

little late looking at this thread, but I also have "Dian and the Greenbriar Boys"...also "The Greenbriar Boys...Ragged but Right"..Vanguard VRS-9159..(also "New Folk"...where they had ¼ of an album..with Hedy West, David Gude and Jackie Washington

(wow...you live long enough, and that old stuff starts to get hard to find..)

Subject: RE: greenbriar boys
From: woody
Date: 29 Jun 99 - 10:23 PM

thosp; Be happy to send you a cassette. Pos tyour address on this thread or e-mail me at:[e-mail]. woody

Subject: RE: greenbriar boys
From: thosp
Date: 29 Jun 99 - 11:05 PM

hi woody ! i can't believe my luck ! thanks ! thanks ! thanks ! ( i guess i'm excited ) let me know if i can return the favor !

thomas p. mcgrath 3804 greystone ave. #C-3 riverdale ny 10463-1924

[e-mail] thanks tom

Subject: RE: greenbriar boys
From: thosp
Date: 29 Jun 99 - 11:07 PM

and thanks to everyone for being so helpful !!!!

Subject: RE: greenbriar boys
From: thosp
Date: 29 Jun 99 - 11:54 PM

somehow i detraced this --- i don't know what that means -- but it doesn't sound good.

Subject: RE: greenbriar boys
From: Bill D
Date: 29 Jun 99 - 11:56 PM

means it WONT be in your personal page..maybe you only traced it...if it says 'detrace' beside it, then you have locked it into your list

Subject: RE: greenbriar boys
From: thosp
Date: 01 Jul 99 - 01:03 AM

to Bill D ----- hi ! and thanks ----- somehow i missed your first post to this thred ---- Ragged but Right------ would it be possible to get a cassette copy ---- there is absolutely nothing to be found in stores both internet and shoeleather ----- tom

Subject: RE: greenbriar boys
From: Rasta
Date: 01 Jul 99 - 02:23 AM

Hey Art--well lM not hung up on being right bout everything but somewhere in my travels I remember hearilng that Eric Weisburg was an orignal Greenbriar boy , perhaps it was just for a week or month. Dont really know. All those guys knew each other in the 50*s in the village. And Im not confusing it with the Tarrierers . The album they did with the cover shot outside the bitter end was a great album. Weisburg also did an album called New Dimensions in bluegrass with Marshall Brickman on double banjo and Gordon terry on fiddle and clearince white on guitar. whewwww what an album , Id love a reissue on CD of that project.----Anyway happy 4-th---====-----Rastaaaaaa

Subject: RE: greenbriar boys
From: Sourdough
Date: 07 Jul 99 - 01:21 PM

I was working in New York in the late Fifties, a college kid with a job at what was incredibly enough, at a successful avante garde theater. God knows, there were plenty of avant garde theaters in NY but one that actually drew audiences night after night and made money, was a rarity. My employment gave me a mild amount of celebrity points so I was invited to places that I might never have seen otherwise. Since my taste ran to folk music, that's the scene I entered.

What made me think of this was coming acros this Greenbrier Boys thread. John Herald used to go to a lot of folk parties around Manhattan. If the Greenbrier Boys were in town and didn't have an engagement, John Herald would be in some loft or other with a group of fifty or more other guests, and there would be lots of music. On these nights, only daylight crowding through the windows of the lofts seemed to be strong enough to push people out and towards their homes.

I used to bring my guitar to these social events which were certainly the highlight of my calendar. My guitar was what was once an inexpensive Gibson blues guitar. I have no idea what the model was but it was finished a deep brown all over the box, front, back and sides. With its black scratchboard, it was a somber and somehat reserved looking instrument.

John Herald, for what ever eason, never seemed to bring a guitar to these gatherings and would to borrow one. That's how I met him, he wanted to borrow a guitar and I offered mine. He picked it up by the neck and kind of hefted it as though he felt that the weight was important. It seemed to satisfy him so he swung it up and played a simple figure on the strings. "Thanks, it has a nice old time 'thunky-thunk sound'".

I knew exactly what he meant. I also knew why it had that old time thunky-thunk sound. It was the strings. Even successful avant-garde theaters don't pay very much. I was making $34 week so strings were a luxury. Those particular strings might easily have been six months old although once, when I needed a low cost way of entertaining myself, I had boiled them to try to restore some of their clarity."

Six weeks or so later, there was John Herald in a loft, at a party looking for a guitar to borrow.

"Would you like to try this one?", I offered.

He took it, hefted it a bit, played a few notes and said, (You are probably getting ahead of me here) ""Thanks. It has a nice old time 'thunky-thunk sound'".

He had absolutely no memory of either me or the guitar but I have to admit that his critical facilities were very consistent because this same scene was replayed several more times over the next months until I decided that I had to devote more time to school. I was in a college seventy miles away and all this NY living with only occasional forays to classes was taking a toll on my grades. I left New York.

It was probably fifteen years before I realized that I had been on the edge of a very special time in New York when the Beat Generation, the Abstract Expressionists, the Folk Wave, Bop, Pop Art, Happenings and more were all vital parts of a cultural stew that bubbled in theaters, bars, storefronts and lofts all over Manhattan. Nearly forty years later and three thousand miles away, I can still see the ripples.

Sourdough

Subject: RE: greenbriar boys
From:
Date: 08 Jul 99 - 03:00 AM

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?

Subject: RE: greenbriar boys
From: CarlZen
Date: 10 Jul 99 - 02:13 AM

Sourdough, Thanks for another good story. I think as a boyhood fan of the Greenbriars I had that dream many a night.

Subject: RE: greenbriar boys
From: GUEST,Tommy Mooney
Date: 23 Mar 00 - 04:52 PM

Recently played an old vinyl of Joan Baez and (I had'nt played it since the 70's, it was left in a "box in the attic" after moving house) re-discovered the "Greenbriar Boys" who joined her on "Banks of the Ohio" and "Little Darling, Pal of mine". They were the band who first turned me on to Bluegrass , it must be - oh, some forty odd years ago. Wonder where are they now. I was amazed to hear that Eric Weisberg was a member, as I saw and heard him here in Ireland a few years back. He was playing Nylon guitar with a band called something like "New Purple South"???? It featured Bill Keith on Banjo, Jim Rooney on rythym guitar( He played it "Back-to-front" - a left-hander) and a Bass player and fantastic fiddle-player whose names have presently escaped me. Are these the same Greenbriar Boys who had all those records that an old thread mentioned. (I was advised to try the archive before posting this, but here goes anyway.) If anyone can provide a cassette I'd love to return the favour if there's some thing I can get?? Tommy

Subject: RE: greenbriar boys
From: GUEST,Arkie
Date: 23 Mar 00 - 05:52 PM

No one has mentioned Joe Isaacs. Wasn't he a member of the Greenbrier Boys after Bob Yellin left? He was and is a great bluegrass banjo player. He has been performing with his family on the bluegrass and gospel circuit and the Isaacs Family has been a very popular group, consistently charting on Gospel radio. His two daughters and son are excellent musicians and they have written some good music as well. Daughter Sonya Isaacs is now building a solo career out of Nashville.

Subject: RE: greenbriar boys
From: Stewie
Date: 23 Mar 00 - 06:05 PM

The 'Greenbriar Boys' entry in K.Baggelaar & D. Milton's 'The Folk Music Encycopaedia' says that they were formed in 1958 and 'originally comprised John Herald, Bob Yellin and Eric Weissburg'. It goes on to say that Weissburg left the group in 1959 and was replaced by Rinzler. Their information was unually pretty reliable.

The 'Ragged But Right' album sleeve has 'assisted by Eric Weissburg on bass'. The CD 'Best of' is a straight reissue of the Vanguard 'Best of' LP 79159 with no extra tracks - short for a CD, but good though.

--Stewie.

Subject: RE: greenbriar boys
From: GUEST,Wally Macnow
Date: 23 Mar 00 - 06:34 PM

They turned out to be my favorite bluegrass band even after all these years. Eric and Bob and John and I (along with a number of others, Roger Sprung and Lionel Kilberg of The Shanty Boys, Joe and Willie Locker, et. al.) used to play together in Washington Square before they formed the band. John and I were both learning to play guitar at that time.

If memory serves me right, Eric left when there was an opening in The Tarriers. That was when Erik Darling, who replaced Alan Arkin, left. Again, if memory serves, Marshall Brickman joined the group and I think he replaced Clarence Cooper.

Art, wasn't it Alan Arkin with The Tarriers when they had their hit singles?

Subject: RE: greenbriar boys
From: GUEST,bigJ
Date: 23 Mar 00 - 08:38 PM

Well, I've just been downstairs to rifle through my old 10 inch LPs and there's 'The Tarriers' on Columbia 33S 1115. No date, but the group consists if Erik Darling aged 23 - Bob Carey aged 24 - and Alan Arkin aged 23 (ah, we were all young then!). The songs on it are Pretty Boy/I Know Where I'm Going/ Rock Island Line/ East Virginia/ Drill Ye Tarriers/ Shadrack/ Those Brown Eyes/ Chaucon/ Acres of Clams and Lonesome Traveller. Regards.

Subject: RE: greenbriar boys
From: Rick Fielding
Date: 24 Mar 00 - 12:17 PM

Wish I'd noticed this one earlier. Yup Eric Weissberg sure did play banjo with the Greenbriars. As did Paul Prestopino. Fred Weisz played bass at times. Even RICHARD GREENE was a member for a while! As Yellin said in an interview, "we weren't very good, but we were enthusisatic"! He of course was basing "good" in relation to the bands that they idolized who were all Southern and VERY tight.

Loved the Greenbriars. (even played in a band called the "Gangreen Boys")

Rick

Subject: RE: greenbriar boys
From: Rick Fielding
Date: 24 Mar 00 - 10:27 PM

This brought back a great memory this afternoon. On one of their many visits to Toronto I took Frank Wakefield home to meet my mother and have lunch. Frank was the first "real" southern musician I'd gotten to know and I was a little wary of how my mother with her very liberal views would interact with one of my heroes who's ideas were decidedly conservative to say the least. I needn't have worried. After lunch the two of them played 4 handed piano on hymn after hymn. I just sat in awe.

Rick

Subject: RE: greenbriar boys
From: SINSULL
Date: 14 Aug 00 - 01:29 PM

I am refreshing this in the hope someone can tell me where I might be able to find some of Paul Prestopino's earlier recordings - early to mid fifties. He did a concert/festival in NJ (Princeton, maybe) and it was recorded - "Three (3) Folk Sing. Anybody have his webpage address maybe?
Mary

Subject: RE: greenbriar boys
From: Mark Clark
Date: 14 Aug 00 - 01:33 PM

I'm afraid I can't help with the recordings but you bring up a name I haven't heard in a long time. Didn't Paul and Danny Kalb make music together long ago? Maybe in Madison?

      - Mark

Subject: RE: greenbriar boys
From: Art Thieme
Date: 14 Aug 00 - 11:58 PM

At the first University of Chicago Folk Festival in 1961 a group from Madison, Wisconsin played at the open stage. They were so good they were asked to do a set at the evening concert in Mandel Hall that night. The guys went on stage and were introduced as Marshall Brickman and Troup. All I recall from that show was that they did a loose version of Rev. Gary Davis' song "If I Had My Way". I think it was Brickman, Danny Kalb, maybe Weisberg and Prestopino too. There were 5 or 6 guys in that long ago impromptu group of friends taking in this all traditional American music folk festival. February 3, 4 and 5, 1961. The festival is still going strong in 2000---forty years later. I think the Greebriar Boys were at the third U. of C. Folk Festival. I've still got a slide of Ralph Rinzler on stage sitting in with the New Lost City Ramblers and the great autoharper Kilby Snow.

What wonderful music came out of those festivals---when the GREAT traditional roots informants/artists were still with us. From here, looking back, what a grand priviledge it was to be able to hang out and soak up the music. And then I was hired to play at 3 of the later festivals. Whenever I'd walk out on that Mandel Hall stage where Frank Warner and Frank Proffit, Jean Carignan and Allan Mills, The Stanley Brothers, Bill Monroe and Kenny Baker, Elizabeth Cotten, Horton Barker, Roscoe Holcomb, Jean and Edna Ritchie, Muddy Waters, Booker "Bukka" T. Washington White, Sandy Paton, Almeda Riddle, Dewey Balfa, Bob Atcher, Glenn Ohrlin, Johnny Gimball, Rev. Gary Davis, Willie Dixon, Nahville's Tom T. Hall -- and so many more. Yes, when I would walk out on that same stage, I could feel the spirits of ALL of those marvelous singers and musicians buoying me up and saying, "Go ahead, kid -- show 'em what you've found." And what a kick and a half it was for me to be there.

Thanks for letting me perpetrate this blatant thread creep.

Art Thieme

Subject: RE: greenbriar boys
From: SINSULL
Date: 15 Aug 00 - 10:27 AM

Art,
Blatant thread creep some more. It must feel strange to be one of the "spirits" yourself now.

Subject: RE: greenbriar boys
From: Mark Clark
Date: 15 Aug 00 - 11:12 AM

I was still living in Des Moines in 1961 and some friends of mine used to travel to Madison. They'd come back with tapes made at jam sessions where Prestopino, Kalb, et al. were present. We were all just blown away. I never got there but I did get to meet Paul a couple of years later in Chicago. I think it was at the old Rising Moon on Pearson. He was backing somebody... maybe it was Chad Mitchell, can't remember anymore.

Art, those UofC festivals were/are truly great. What an amazing opportunity they were/are. When I couldn't scare up enough money for tickets, I'd still ride the El down on a Sunday morning for all the free workshops in Ida Noyes Hall. Sometimes you couldn't decide whether to hit the jams or the workshops; they were both so great. You could just stop someone walking through and ask "On your album, how did you play ..." and as often as not, they'd stop right there, take your guitar and show you.

We always looked forward to festival weekend because of the traditional Sunday afternoon jam session at Jimmy's Woodlawn Tap. There were bluegrass/old-timey sessions there every Sunday but festival weekend many of the booked musicians would come over and join in.

Mike Seeger played at CSPS here in Cedar Rapids not long ago. I asked him if he still attended the festival. He said "no" but didn't elaborate.

And that's what I know about the Greenbriar Boys. <g>

      - Mark

Subject: RE: greenbriar boys
From: Art Thieme
Date: 15 Aug 00 - 11:53 AM

Mark,

The sessions at Jimmy's were great. Paul Goelz and Stan Chapin and Chuck Cling and Mark Dorinson, yourself and many others--some ultimately became The Greater Chicago Bluegrass Band and even The Volo Bogtrotters. (The V.B. are still going strong along with the CAJUN ACES offshoot.) Fred Campeau, Steve Rosen, the Terr brothers, Lynn Terr, Paul Tyler (whose wife is now interim head of the Old Town School Of Folk Music), Richard and Mose Hood, Vicki Moss and Flawn Williams. Good people and fine old-timey music & dance.

Thanks for the mamaries !

Art

Subject: RE: greenbriar boys
From: MAG (inactive)
Date: 15 Aug 00 - 12:51 PM

Mike Seeger. He emceed a workshop at that fest. (??early seventies) on barbershop quartet harmony. A female quartet was on, and I was so impressed with Mike's questions; he had them describe how they laid out the melody first, then usually the descant, bass and alto. How they built the harmony. It was great.

I discovered Louis Killen at that festival (probably not he same year). and got in some clogging practice. (I had taken Sharee Shepherd's clogging class, with a to-remain-nameless live musician friend, and it was hard to find places to practice afterwards.)

Boy, those were good times.

Subject: RE: greenbriar boys
From: Mark Clark
Date: 20 Aug 00 - 12:53 AM

Art,

Yeah, the people that used to come through Jimmy's could make a book in itself. Remember Artie P. Crowder "The Old Man From The Mountain"? He'd come up from Indiana with Bill Jackson and Harold Lamb? What a treat they were. Dave Prine and Tyler Wilson used to come by too. And Dave Samuelson would come by and sit in on mandolin. Dave produced the Buck Graves and Kenny Baker albums on Puritan.

Stan Shapin is out in LA now. I had a chance to visit a few years back but haven't heard from him for a long time. I'm always amazed that I don't run into him here. I always admired his banjo playing and valued his friendship.

The GCBG actualy came as much from Lackey's Steak House as it did Jimmy's. Remember Gene Lackey? Gene had a little corner resteraunt in Rogers Park that was SO SMALL... (How small was it?) It was so small that Gene wasn't forced to buy his meat from the outfit. It was so small, they didn't even make him put in a juke box! It was so small, they didn't even have a liquor license, you had to go around the corner to buy a bottle of wine or a six pack and bring it with you for dinner. Now that's small.

Gene was a wonderful country singer from Mt. Home, AK and an absolute genius with cut up pieces of dead cows. I used to love to eat dinner there and stay to listen to Gene sing. It was there that I first met Chuck and Richard. Flemming Brown used to show up there quite a bit as I recall and a fledgling band with the cheeky name "Chicago" used to rehearse there after hours. Gene and his wife were tuned into the arts community so touring Brodway productions often held their parties there.

Well, it seems I remember more about the Greenbrian Boys than I thought.

      - Mark

Subject: RE: greenbriar boys
From: Peter K (Fionn)
Date: 20 Aug 00 - 08:25 AM

What a fascinating thread! It's been waved under my nose a few times now, and I did keep meaning to look in. So thanks to those who have kept reviving it, I've finally made it.

The first time I saw the term "bluegrass" was on that Joan Baez album that Tommy Mooney has. The banjo solo on "Pal of Mine" has stayed in my head ever since (seem like note of it), and the Baez/Greenbriar version of "Banks of the Ohio" is still the best I've heard.

Can someone tell me when this album was issued? It's called Joan Baez Volume Two, issued on Vanguard. I saw a copy recently, prominently labelled Vanguard front and back. But in tiny print on the back, there was also the Pye imprint, and "copyright 1975" - so this is obviously a reissue, probably UK only.

And is there any way of knowing who was playing banjo on that album? I'm really curious to know, just like I keep meaning to find out who played sax on "Still crazy after all these years."

Bluegrass never featured much in the 60s folk clubs I frequented, though I well remember a banjo player called Pete Stanley, who was still going strong on the London pub scene quite recently.

Subject: RE: greenbriar boys
From: Bud Savoie
Date: 20 Aug 00 - 08:29 AM

Fionn: Bob Yellin played banjo on that album.

Subject: RE: greenbriar boys
From: Peter K (Fionn)
Date: 20 Aug 00 - 08:46 AM

Four minutes, Bud? I expect quicker than that from Mudcat!
BR>Many thanks. I've been meaning to get this resolved for maybe thirty years.

How did you know it was Bob Yellin? Are the players credited on the original album, or do you know from knowing when the album was cut? (Or is the style just obvious to true bluegrass afficionados?)

Subject: RE: greenbriar boys
From: Bud Savoie
Date: 21 Aug 00 - 07:47 AM

OK, Fionn, this is a lot later than four minutes, but I was away at a country fair all day yesterday.

Yes, there were good notes on the back of the original album. This was the first time I had heard of the Greenbriar Boys. Saw them a couple of years later in person, and they exceeded expectations. All three of them were superb musicians and obviously enjoyed what they did.

I think the album came out in 1960.

Bud

Subject: RE: greenbriar boys
From: Art Thieme
Date: 21 Aug 00 - 01:41 PM

Mark,

I just found this thread again. I've got tapes of some of those times at Lackey's. Artie P. and Fleming and Steve Wade jamming with Davey Prine. Doug Montegue too I think. and unique tapes of Hobart Smith---recorded while sitting on the couch in George & Gerry Armstrong's livingroom. Someone--not G. & G.---put the mike under the couch. Lackey's place at Lunt & Glenwood was across the L tracks from the No Exit in those days. The space is now THE HEARTLAND CAFE owned by Mike James--who just bought the No Exit---cleaned the place up pretty well and reopened it. Probably the longest running coffeehouse in the U.S. I played there for 37 years. I guess they've been around under all the different owners for 43 years.

Art Thieme

Art Thieme

Subject: RE: greenbriar boys
From: Mark Clark
Date: 21 Aug 00 - 03:59 PM

Art,

Now that you mention it, I remember the No Exit being there. When I think of the No Exit, I still think of Sheridan Road near the El tracks. My oldest daughter, Manda, told me she spent many nights in her teen years in the No Exit listing to you. I believe it was in that location though I may be wrong. I'm happy to say that you brought her along in fine shape. I don't think Manda ever mentioned the Greenbriar Boys though. <g>

I'm glad to hear the No Exit remains extant. If they remain true to their purpose, there'll be another crop of young people introduced to folk music.

      - Mark

Subject: RE: greenbriar boys
From: GUEST,Tommy Mooney
Date: 21 Aug 00 - 05:36 PM

Yes Fionn I too was "hooked" on Bluegrass having first heard the solo by Bob Yellin on the Pal o' mine track on Baez's album that we mentioned. It must have been in the sixties (early) that it was first released because I bought it in HMV Oxford Street, London before leaving the UK in 1965. I met Eric Weisberg in person at a "Bluegrass Festival" in Athy, Co.Kildare, Ireland back about 1986/7?. He did a workshop there on Nylon Strung guitar since Bill Keith was also there and, of course, took the Banjo "session". (It was outdoors, by the riverbank and it was unforgettable. I learned more in a half hour than I had done in several years of self teaching from manuals, records , whatever.) TM

Subject: RE: greenbriar boys
From: GUEST,Tommy Mooney
Date: 21 Aug 00 - 05:55 PM

Sorry, forgot to respond to another remark of Fionn's. I have also met Pete Stanley that excellent 5-string Banjo player, it was in a Pub in Higate , North London if I remember correctly. It would have been around 1988/89 I believe. I have never before, or since heard Jig-time tunes handled so well on that instrument. Incidentally, Pete Stanley used to figure quite a bit on Radio folk shows in the 60s and 70s around London.

Subject: RE: greenbriar boys
From: JJ
Date: 10 Sep 02 - 06:39 PM

Wasn't Dian James married to Bud? Or Travis?

That's a terrific album (bought it on eBay), and I wonder what became of her.

Subject: RE: greenbriar boys
From: Stewie
Date: 10 Sep 02 - 08:06 PM

There's a recent 2-CD reissue by Vanguard. Good value.

Greenbriar Boys: Best of the Vanguard Years

--Stewie.

Subject: RE: greenbriar boys
From: GUEST,Chris in Wheaton
Date: 11 Sep 02 - 03:04 PM

Great thread - saw the Greenbriar Boys at the Ash Grove in LA ('63?). The album with Frank Wakefield was not to my taste, but everything else was great and I have sung Ragged But Right since those days (even with the key change!!). Art or others - the Chicago Public Library has tapes of the UC Folk Fests and has converted some to cd's. Can't somebody find a way to get the best parts released publicly? I listened to Maybelle with the NLCR - great stuff. Chris in Wheaton