The Mountain by Steve Earle and The Del McCoury Band

Written by Dermot Watson on Thursday, 09 July 2009

Am currently really digging The Mountain by Steve Earle. It’s been out a few years but I’ve only gotten round to it now.  It sounds a bit like Bill Monroe’s band playing a Pogues album (lots of Irish touches) and has some great, great tunes and playing.

Steve said his aim with the album was ‘immortality’ as he wanted a least one tune to make it as a ‘standard’ played at every bluegrass festival.

The record features The Del McCoury Band, one of the best pickin’ acts around. Del (who used to actually play in Monroe’s band) has sired his very own bluegrass outfit who are probably the hardest working band in acoustic Americana music (whatever that is).

Check out the mic. technique on the YouTube vid. There’s only one (an Audio Technica 4033, I believe…the definitive bluegrass mic.) The band essentially mix themselves by moving in and out. I saw them perform at Hardly Strictly Bluegrass in Golden Gate Park in San Francisco. Wow! There’s nothing more beautiful than a great bluegrass band in full flight, and there’s a whole choreography surrounding this mic. technique.

I’ve tried to perform like this with a string band, but most live sound engineers just don’t get it…they run in fear when they see a condenser mic.

If you want to catch another really, really good band at single mic. use, try and see Chatham County Line.

Also worth mentioning is The Killer Angels by Michael Shaara, a fab book about the American Civil War which inspired some of the characters on The Mountain.