Bluegrass Mountain Style

1	Let the Whole World Talk / The Johnson Mountain Boys 2:41
2	The Old Home Place / J.D. Crowe & the New South 2:49
3	Cincinnati Rag / Jerry Douglas 2:36
4	My Sweet Love Ain't Around / The McCoury Brothers 4:07
5	Here Today, Gone Tomorrow / Hazel Dickens 2:49
6	Texas Barbeque / Béla Fleck 3:58
7	Lost and I'll Never Find the Way / Ricky Skaggs 2:06
8	Sweet Little Miss Blues Eyes / Here Today 1:55
9	John Hardy / Tony Rice 3:28
10	Crosseyed Cricket / Tony Trischka 2:06
11	Who's That Kinockin' at My Door? / Dreadful Snakes 3:54
12	Your Letter's Overdue / Delia Bell & Bill Grant 2:30
13	Leather Britches / Sam Bush 3:46
14	Someone Play Dixie for Me / Dry Branch Fire Squad 3:42
15	Diamond Joe / Joe Val & The New England Bluegrass Boys 3:08
16	The Whup of Love / Andy Statman 3:35
17	Too Late to Cry / Alison Krauss 2:57
18	You Are the One / Jim & Jesse 2:37
19	Cherokee Maggie / Blaine Sprouse 3:22
20	Old Devil's Dream / The Nashville Bluegrass Band 2:32
21	I'd Rather Be Alone / The Bluegrass Album Band 3:08
22	Rose of My Heart / The Whitstein Brothers 3:01

Barnes & Noble

For the companion volume to True Bluegrass, Rounder rolls out the big guns from its '80s bluegrass roster. Suffice it to say that their aim is true. Anyone into hot picking will be dazzled, and possibly dumbstruck, by the precision and speed of the instrumental interplay on Jerry Douglas's version of "Cincinnati Rag," which also features Bela Fleck on banjo and Buck White on mandolin. That track has barely faded out when Del McCoury and his brother Jerry offer a plaintive take on Hank Williams's loping heartbreaker "My Sweet Love Ain't Around," which features the double bonus of Del's keening tenor and the brothers' beautiful harmonies. Folk wisdom radiates from the lyrics and the down-home voice of Hazel Dickens on the deceptively jaunty bluegrass/country-and-western hybrid "Here Today, Gone Tomorrow." Alison Krauss checks in with "Too Late to Cry," a cut from her first solo album, which resonates with faint echoes of the pop influence she would bring to her more recent recordings. Jim & Jesse summon the mountain harmonies of early traditional country music to energize their soaring vows of love and fidelity on "You Are the One." Ricky Skaggs, Bela Fleck, Delia Bell & Bill Grant, Sam Bush, and J. D. Crowe & the New South are among the other stalwarts who make exemplary music on Bluegrass Mountain Style while also demonstrating the intimate kinship between the genre's traditional and progressive wings. David McGee

All Music Guide

One of the great strengths of this bluegrass compilation is that, contrary to its title, it offers a very rich cross section of approaches to the tradition -- not only bluegrass mountain-style, but also bluegrass California-style, bluegrass urban-style, and bluegrass progressive-style. For the hardcore mountain stuff there are classic acid grass performances by the McCoury Brothers (whose rock-hard and piercing vocals on "My Sweet Love Ain't Around" constitute one of this album's highlights) and Ricky Skaggs (who delivers an absolutely slamming rendition of the high-lonesome classic "Lost and I'll Never Find the Way"). For a more urban sound you can skip over to mandolinist Andy Statman's swinging "The Whup of Love" or the late Joe Val's Boston-accented take on "Diamond Joe." California bluegrass legend Tony Rice depresses flatpickers everywhere with his fiery and headlong "John Hardy," and Tony Trischka continues his ongoing expansion of the bluegrass banjo vocabulary with his own composition entitled "Crosseyed Cricket," on which he moves easily between meat-and-potatoes Scrugs-style picking and complex melodic passages (Béla Fleck does much the same thing on his own "Texas Barbecue," which also features some fine work using Keith tuners). And that only scratches the surface of this 22-track collection. Highly recommended. Rick Anderson