Blake, Taylor, Bush, Clements, Holland, Burns LP – HDS 701

Add a holy grail of progressive bluegrass history to your collection with the legendary self-titled collaboration featuring Norman Blake, Tut Taylor, Sam Bush, Butch Robins, Vassar Clements, David Holland, and Jethro Burns. Captured during a single day of spontaneous, boundary-pushing musical exploration on June 22, 1974, at Nashville’s Hound’s Ear Studio, this 1975 release on HDS Records (HDS 701) masterfully dismantles the lines between traditional string band music and complex jazz improvisation.

Produced by Hank Deane and engineered by Claude J. Hill, this entirely acoustic masterpiece reunites key members of John Hartford’s foundational Aereo-Plain band with brilliant additions. The inclusion of British jazz bassist Dave Holland—famed for his genre-defining work on Miles Davis’s In a Silent Way—sparks an incredible creative fire, blending perfectly with Jethro Burns’ sophisticated jazz-mandolin rhythms and Norman Blake’s hot-picking acoustic lead lines. This 12-inch 33 RPM stereo LP provides a wonderfully natural, dynamic, and open analog soundstage. From the high-energy swing of “Sweet Georgia Brown” and Billy Strayhorn’s “‘A’ Train” to the entirely improvised blues epic “Sauerkraut ‘N Solar Energy,” this vintage pressing captures pure string-band magic that digital streams cannot duplicate.

Tracklist:

• Side 1: Sweet Georgia Brown; Sauerkraut ‘N Solar Energy; The Old Brown Case; ‘A’ Train.

• Side 2: Going Home; McKinley’s Blues; Oconee; Vassar & Dave.

Housed in its original vintage mid-1970s cardboard sleeve, this highly collectible album is an indispensable cornerstone acquisition for serious newgrass collectors, traditional jazz-fusion historians, and classic acoustic vinyl archivists alike.