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In the fertile folk music days of the late 1950s and early 1960s, trios and quartets with matching shirts and guitars were sprouting like dandelions. Using the Weavers as their main inspiration rather than, say, Leadbelly, their sound was usually robust, clean, and a tad corny. Luckily (for variety's sake), in the midst of this "revival," Harry Smith had released his Anthologies of American Folk Music. Presented as three double-LPs, culled from his extensive collection of 78s, Mr. Smith brought unadulterated old-time, gospel, and bluegrass music from the 1920s and 1930s to a new generation. This was, largely, rural music without frills (or matching shirts). In folk circles, these anthologies spawned a hurricane of interest and inspired more than a few young, urban men and women to grab banjos, mandolins, guitars, and give their best imitations of a field holler. Three of the young urbanites so inspired were the Greenbriar Boys. The nucleus of the Greebriar Boys began when two students at the University of Wisconsin, John Herald and Eric Weissberg, met and began comparing musical influences. Weissberg, already a whiz-kid mandolin and guitar picker, rocked New-York born John Herald's world with his repertoire of bluegrass and old-time tunes. Herald was so shaken, he immediately bought a guitar and, with Weissberg's assistance, taught himself the fundamentals. Weissberg and Herald's musical association progressed so rapidly that the University of Wisconsin couldn't hold them and soon they were off for New York City, where a folk music revival was in full swing. Not long after arriving, they met an adept banjo player named Bob Yellin. Yellin, though classically trained on trumpet, piano, and violin, had fallen under the spell of Earl Scruggs and, probably much to his parents' consternation, was thereafter immersed in plucking a banjo. Before long, the trio -- Herald on lead vocals and guitar, Weissberg on mandolin and low harmonies, Yellin on banjo and high harmonies -- was pickin' and passin' the hat in NYC's famed Washington Square Park. Though occasionally playing such small, influential clubs as Gerde's Folk City, the Greenbriar Boys were still in it mostly for fun rather than careers. All of this changed when Eric Weissberg suddenly left the group to accept a higher-profile slot with the Tarriers folk group. After trial and error with a couple of other mandolin players, Weissberg's replacement, Ralph Rinzler, proved to be the catalyst to move the Greenbrier Boys out of the public parks and into the recording studio. Rinzler, even more steeped in old-time than Weissberg, possessed an extensive collection of reel-to-reel tapes containing the music of Riley Puckett, Uncle Dave Macon, Charlie Poole, Gid Tanner, and the like. What's more, Rinzler was ambitious, making him a stickler for rehearsing. It was at his encouragement that the group traveled to Union Grove, North Carolina to enter the 1960 Old Time Fiddler's Convention. And, despite being Yankee boys, they won the band competition. 1962 saw the Greenbriar Boys first record. First, they backed up Joan Baez on a couple of songs from her second album. These two selections, "Pal of Mine" and "Banks of the Ohio," are included on this collection. The Greenbriar Boy harmonies are a nice addition to the voice of Baez, providing backwoods grit not often found on a Baez release. Even when Baez is singing the verses, without harmonies, she seems to have been particularly inspired by the bluegrass accompaniment and sounds almost like she was born and bred in the Appalachian Mountains. In other words, she keeps the folk-queen warbling to a minimum. The Greenbriar Boys also released their first full album in 1962. (They had appeared in 1958 on a little-known New Folks compilation album.) From this first album, the Flatt & Scruggs classic "Down the Road" is indicative of the Greenbriar Boy sound. Herald's agile, rural-come-metropolitan-style tenor delivers the verses and rides above Rinzler and Yellin on the choruses. Yellin's banjo is crisp and driving, as is Rinzler's mandolin. The only thing that distinguishes them from an honest-to-God, dirt-road bluegrass band is the somewhat jug-bandish intonation of Herald's voice. It's not quite as hokum-styled as Jim Kweskin or Peter Stampfael, but it's still pretty obvious he's not from Dixie. Which is not to say his voice is at all jive -- it isn't. In its own way, Herald's singing is quite fetching. The traditional mountain hymn "Life Is Like A Mountain Railway," also from the first album, is delivered with Primitive Baptist authenticity, even though it was "comin' to ya" from Greenwich Village. Yellin's wordless harmony moans are a special treat. Rinzler's weeping mandolin sets the tone. The Greenbriar Boys next album, 1964's Ragged But Right! is a bit of a misnomer, because, by this time, their singing and playing is tight and professional. The first album was ragged; this one is practiced but right. Their version of Tex Atchison's "Sleepy-Eyed John" is a driving wonder. Yellin and Rinzler trade leads on banjo and mandolin, while Herald's high, expressive tenor nails this classic admonition to a lazy mountaineer. The choruses, with all three Greenbriars singing, are highly spirited and highly potent. The title track finds Rinzler and Herald trading lead vocals, with Herald displaying some fast picking on the guitar. Rinzler's voice, lower than Herald's, is quite strong and, had he made another Greenbriar Boy album, he would have been a vocal force to reckon with. The call-and-response trading of vocal leads is intricate and impressive. By the time of the next Greenbriar Boys release on Vanguard (they were loaned to Elektra Records for one album to back folk chanteuse Di'an James), Rinzler had left to pursue musicology full-time as director of the American Folk Life division of the Smithsonian Institute. He was replaced by Frank Wakefield on mandolin and vocals, and Jim Buchanan on fiddle. The album, Better Late Than Never, released in 1966, proved to be the Greenbriar Boys last hurrah. Which is a shame, because Wakefield was the real deal -- a mountain boy from Tennessee who could write, sing, and play the fool out of a mandolin. He had even played in bluegrass bands with legendary bluegrass hell-raiser Red Allen. Two of the tunes Wakefield wrote for Better Late Than Never, "The Train That I Ride" and "Morning Train," have become bluegrass staples. The instrumental "Morning Train" showcases Wakefield's fast, inventive picking. One can easily hear the impish, impossibly-fast style he would pass on to one of his students, David Grisman. Better Late Than Never is a more democratic affair, due mostly to Wakefield's status. Wakefield takes about as many lead vocals as Herald. Besides Wakefield's compositions, there are far fewer traditional songs and a few more (then) contemporary songs. These include a nice Cajun turn on Floyd Chance's "Alligator Man" and a stringband version of Mike Nesmith's "Different Drum," with Herald turning in a fine, crying vocal. Of course, by now, the folk singer-songwriter was a standard musical type, and one simply had to write more of "your own." One had to "be contemporary." This, naturally, was the death knell for the many traditional bands that had formed and matured during the folk revolution. In 1967, the Greenbriar Boys went their separate ways. John Herald, in the early 1970s, moved to the Woodstock Mountains in upper New York State and formed the Woodstock Mountain Revue conglomeration that recorded two albums for Rounder Records and boasted such members as Eric Andersen, Paul Butterfield, Bill Keith, Jim Rooney, the Traum brothers, Paul Siebel, and John Sebastian. Later he formed various groups, usually known as "The John Herald Band," recorded the occasional album, and played regularly in the folk markets of Boston, L.A., and Philadelphia. Additionally, over the years, Herald was an in-demand session guitarist on records by Doc Watson, Ramblin' Jack Elliott, Buffy Saint Marie, Tom Rush, and a young Bonnie Raitt. Ralph Rinzler, perhaps America's foremost folk musicologist, became "the source" for American roots music. After a long, successful career in musicology, he passed away in 1994. In memoriam, the Smithsonian Institute created the Ralph Rinzler Folklife Archives and Collections at the Center for Folklife and Cultural Heritage. The collection includes over 17,000 records and 45,000 audio tapes. Frank Wakefield founded the Good Old Boys, whose membership was frequently abetted by Jerry Garcia. He continued to teach mandolin and released a couple of solo albums. Bob Yellin played on the Jerry Garcia/David Grisman album Shady Grove. He later moved to Israel, changed his name to David Yellin, and formed The Unknown Country Band that enjoyed popularity in Israeli venues. Eric Weissberg, of course, had huge success with the Deliverance soundtrack and has been a popular folk, bluegrass, and jazz sideman on countless recordings. His mastery of ten (count 'em) instruments has made him a one-man, sideman band. What the Greenbriar Boys had was bluegrass roots informed by city-boy wise-ass. It was a compelling combination and, in a better world, would have led to wider success and more recordings. Such as it is, this two-disc collection is double fine and will have to do. |
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