Laurie & Kathy Sing The Songs of Vern & Ray
Before Laurie Lewis and Kathy Kallick became the highly respected and successful singers, songwriters, and bluegrass bandleaders they are today, they were founding members of the groundbreaking northern California band the Good Ol’ Persons. Although Laurie remained in that group for only a short while before moving on to lead her own bands, she and Kathy forged a lifelong personal and professional friendship that endures to this day. They recorded a collaborative album, Together, in 1991, for Kaleidoscope Records, on which they performed their wonderful interpretation of the venerable “Little Annie,” learned from Vern & Ray. Laurie and Kathy wrote in the liner notes, “This album is respectfully dedicated to Vern Williams and Ray Park, early sources of inspiration for both of us.” This new album, in which the two perform music exclusively drawn from the repertoires of those early mentors, is the latest coming-together of this multi-talented twosome. It is long overdue. –Randy Pitts, from the liner notes
Song Titles
Oh! Susanna * Cabin On A Mountain * Cowboy Jack * Little Birdie * If I Had My Life To Live Over Again * Happy I’ll Be * Black-Eyed Susie * To Hell With The Land * Flying Cloud * Montana Cowboy * Down Among the Budded Roses * Thinkin’ of Home * Field of Flowers * How Many Times * My Clinch Mountain Home * My Old Kentucky Home * Blue Grass Style * Touch of God’s Hand
CD Reviews
County Sales ~ Dave Freeman
Someone had a great idea here, paying tribute to one of the most influential groups in the history of California’s Bluegrass scene, and Laurie and Kathy have certainly pulled it off well with this superb recording. Vern Williams and Ray Park both came from the state of Arkansas, and they were the real thing: just as the Lilly Brothers & Don Stover created a real following for authentic Bluegrass in New England, so did Vern & Ray do the same thing in California. The Arkansas duo—who had a few songs out on the Starday label at one time, plus a rare but wonderful LP on Old Homestead, played hard-edged, raw, dynamic music, and here Laurie and Kathy demonstrate that they can do the same thing over 40 years later. They start with a great bunch of songs, including well done versions of CABIN ON A MOUNTAIN, THINKIN’ OF HOME, THE TOUCH OF GOD’S HAND and MONTANA COWBOY, numbers they were known for not only in California but among serious Bluegrass fans everywhere. Whether the rest of the 18 songs & tunes were part of Vern & Ray’s repertoire we can’t say, but they were certainly the type of material that the duo excelled at, and Laurie and Kathy do them justice: COWBOY JACK, HOW MANY TIMES, IF I HAD MY LIFE TO LIVE OVER, LITTLE BIRDIE, MY CLINCH MOUNTAIN HOME, FLYING CLOUD, HAPPY I’LL BE, FIELD OF FLOWERS, DOWN AMONG THE BUDDED ROSES, etc. Helping with the accompaniment in the appropriate places are Tom Rozum (mandolin), Patrick Sauber (banjo), Keith Little and Sally Van Meter. A fine album—well recommended!
Hillbilly at Harvard report on the Joe Val Bluegrass Festival, 2/2015–Lynn Joiner
“Laurie came back with Kathy Kallick on Sunday for a wonderful set of songs from their Vern and Ray project: Laurie and Kathy Sing the Songs of Vern and Ray. It was a great treat to hear these ladies resurrecting these (mostly) familiar songs they learned decades ago from Vern Williams and Ray Park, with their own stamp but completely true to the spirit of those two great Arkansans who brought real mountain music to California. The album is terrific, a rich feast—go buy and savor it.”
Fatea ~ David Kidman
Kathy and Laurie are two of the most highly-respected singers-cum-songwriters in the world of contemporary bluegrass. They started out as founding members, in the mid-70s, of groundbreaking northern California bluegrass outfit The Good Ol’ Persons, where their friendship was forged and nurtured before they moved on to other things including leading their own bands, only once (in 1991) getting back together to record a duo album, somewhat appropriately entitled Together. One of that disc’s tracks was a cover of the Carter Family standard Little Annie, a song they’d learnt from the repertoire of Vern and Ray (Vern Williams and Ray Park). Vern and Ray, originally from Arkansas, had proved enormously influential in the spread of bluegrass in 1960s and 70s California, their raw, immediate energy and innate integrity proving a key inspiration for Laurie, Kathy and many other aspiring bluegrass musicians of that time.
Here on this new album Kathy and Laurie are reunited in order to pay sincere (and arguably overdue) tribute to the legacy of Vern and Ray by performing a generous selection of songs (and one tune) that were associated with them. There was obviously no desire on their part to replicate, or deliver a slavish copy of, the Vern and Ray sound, but Kathy and Laurie invoke with uncanny intensity the spirit and essence of those raw, pioneering recordings in the tremendous sense of togetherness they display here. If you thought Kathy and Laurie’s Together album was pretty darned good, then you’re sure to be stopped in your tracks by this new offering. It’s a scintillating old-time-reunion disc, a tribute album that sings and plays this music straight from the heart and with total, unbridled authenticity.
It may sound like I’m peddling a cliché, but honestly, you’ll likely never want to hear another version of Oh Susanna once you’ve heard this album’s rip-roaring opener. And the album never lets up thereafter; whatever the tempo, things really motor along, from the hell-for-leather Black-Eyed Susie and Blue Grass Style to the relaxed rolling My Clinch Mountain Home and the appealingly poised Down Among The Budded Roses (the latter’s one of two tracks to feature some delicious resophonic slide guitar from guest – and erstwhile fellow-GOP – Sally Van Meter, the other being My Old Kentucky Home). Sure, the kudos and achievement of this marvellous tribute album is down to the fantastic core teaming of Kathy and Laurie, who were just born to sing together; the way they share and swop lead and harmony vocal parts is miraculous, and they both have voices to die for. But there’s also no cause to undersell the brilliant ancillary contributions from Patrick Sauber (banjo), Tom Rozum (mandolin, and also harmony vocal on three cuts), Annie Stanimec (twin fiddle on Cowboy Jack and the absolutely gorgeous Thinkin’ Of Home) and Keith Little (banjo and/or harmony vocal on five cuts, and he’s also invited to step up to the mic for lead vocal and guitar duty on the closing track, Touch Of God’s Hand). Finally, in the way of an interlude we’re treated to a spirited instrumental outing (Flying Cloud).
That last word “spirited” can be heard to apply to the whole project, which boasts a recording with loads of presence and immediacy, and just a touch of wildness, a quality that’s exactly right for the music. This is the most fitting of tributes, performed with all due enthusiasm, affection and sympathy by the most fitting of bluegrass practitioners.
Bluegrass Today ~ Richard Thompson
Hard-core bluegrass duo Vern Williams and Ray Park, from Arkansas, were a tremendous influence on bluegrass music in California.
Ever since meeting in 1959 they brought the sounds of the Ozarks to the west coast playing concert and dance halls, radio and television. They played in a raw, authentic style that was new to the region and, as a result, many California bluegrass musicians learned to play in just that way.
Acknowledging this influence, Laurie Lewis and Kathy Kallick pay tribute to Vern & Ray with an 18 song album that captures the essence of those pioneers, continuing the association that began when they started singing together in the mid-1970s and continued with their first album Together (Kaleidoscope, released 1991).
Lewis and Kallick honor the Vern & Ray arrangement of Stephen Foster’s Oh! Susanna, the lead track, and such well-known titles from Vern & Ray’s repertoire asMontana Cowboy, Cabin on a Mountain and The Touch of God’s Hand are each given a faithful, edgy treatment that is vibrant and re-freshed.
The performance on Thinkin’ of Home, another Vern & Ray favorite, sees Lewis and Kallick’s vocals trace the instrumental harmony lines. The additional fiddle of Annie Staninec enhances the mournful tone of the song.
The ladies cleverly balance the historical origins of the Carter Family’s Cowboy Jackand My Clinch Mountain Home and the fervour of Vern & Ray with their own fresh input. And they don’t hold anything back in their powerful treatment of How Many Times. Likewise with To Hell with the Land and Little Birdie.
Lewis and Kallick share and swap the lead and harmony vocal parts, and are ably assisted by some of the west coast’s finest musicians, Tom Rozum – doing his best copy of Vern Williams’ mandolin style, Patrick Sauber (bass), Keith Little (banjo), the aforementioned Annie Staninec and Sally Van Meter (resophonic guitar).
Rozum and Little each provide a third voice for the trios.
All have put their hearts and souls into this project.
For those crying out for honest-to-goodness bluegrass music like it used to be will certainly want to add this CD to their collection. Satisfaction guaranteed.
Lonesome Highway ~ Ronnie Norton
I’m a long time fan of both of these bluegrass super-heroines and I’d been waiting for this album since I first heard it was in the melting pot. California based, both Laurie and Kathy have been friends, collaborators and band members for more than a few years. Originally members of the iconic Californian band The Good Old Persons, they both went on tohave separate and hugely respected solo careers. But they never forgot the main influence of their early years was the bluegrass and old timey sound of Vern Williams and Ray Park. This amazing collection is their way of somehow paying back and recognising the kick-start Vern and Ray’s music gave them.
Vern and Ray, although only together through the sixties and early seventies, were an everlasting influence on the west coast bluegrass scene and it’s early musicians, including Tony Rice, Chris Hillman and Herb Pedersen (who played banjo with them before taking Doug Dillard’s vacant slot in my all time favourite band). Like a few others, their effect on the growing bluegrass scene was way in excess of their short time together.
Laurie Lewis and Kathy Kallick and their Bluegrass Pals take us through an 18 song primer of Californian-associated bluegrass standards that is a joy to listen to and a full on foot tapper to boot. I won’t single out any particular track, as that would be sure to lessen the importance of all the others. This is a complete pack of some of our all time favourite bluegrass tunes that owe their popularity to the short careers of Vern and Ray and are lovingly reprised here by two of bluegrass’s most respected daughters.
The only problem with this little collection is that you’ll have to hit the record store again for more of Kathy and Laurie’s essential bluegrass listening. Laurie Lewis singing Who Will Watch the Home Place? is still my favourite and most played radio tune. ‘Nuff said.
One of the best tribute albums I have heard in many a day.
The Lonesome Road Review ~ Donald Teplyske
Now come, let’s gather round me, here’s what I’ve got to say,
About this blue grass music, I know it’s here to stay;
Can’t you hear that 5-string talkin’, that lonesome fiddle whine,
Take off your hat, hang up your coat: we’re gonna have a time!”
-“Blue Grass Style”
Vern Williams and Ray Parks were an influential west coast bluegrass act from their formation in 1959 until their dissolution in the mid-70s. Their lone album, 1974’s Sounds of the Ozarks, is a rarely heard but much sought after slab of Ozark mountain-raised, California hewn bluegrass. Following Vern and Ray’s disbanding of their group, the Vern Williams Band remianed a prominent presence in bluegrass, especially on the west coast.
Written by band member Clyde Williamson and Cal Veale, Vern and Ray’s song “Cabin On A Mountain” is rightly considered an exceptional bluegrass performance, with the song going on to be recorded numerous times including by Larry Stephenson, the Spinney Brothers, and Danny Paisley & the Southern Grass. Longview, Open Road, and many others have recorded their songs.
Possibly no two individuals have more confidently and consistently beat the drum for Vern & Ray than Kathy Kallick and Laurie Lewis. Themselves leading denizens of the California bluegrass scene, Lewis and Kallick frequently pay tribute to Vern & Ray and their ongoing influence in concert. They come together here for their second album of duets (following 1991’s Together, which was dedicated to Vern & Ray) by releasing a wonderfully touching and musically significant tribute to the duo that so impacted them.
Critiquing Laurie & Kathy Sing the Songs of Vern & Ray is patently silly. It is incredible from start to finish. There may be finer bluegrass singers than these inspirational stalwarts, but such scaling would be foolish. Songs have few better friends than these two; whether singing lead or harmony, their voices know each other so well as to make their efforts appear unrehearsed and familial.
That both are exceptional musicians—Kallick plays lead and rhythm guitar on all but one track, Lewis handles all the fiddle (augmented with frequent Kallick collaborator Annie Staninec on a pair of twin fiddle numbers) and bass—is indisputable. With their instrumentalists—primarily Tom Rozum (mandolin) and Patrick Sauber (banjo), but also Vern & Ray acolyte Keith Little (banjo) and Sally Van Meter (resophonic slide)— the duo naturally captures the passionate spirit Williams and Parks brought to their music.
A definite highlight is their interpretation of “Thinkin’ Of Home.” Featuring twin fiddles and lead vocals from both Lewis and Kallick, this Williams/Park co-write (from their debut Starday extended play recording of 1961) is reinvented by these formidable female voices. Whereas Williams’ voice cut across the melody in the most wonderful way, Lewis and Kallick gently support each other through the song’s desolate isolation, while simultaneously singing with no little bit of starch.
One of Vern & Ray’s most authoritative recordings was their take of “Touch Of God’s Hands.” Here Keith Little takes the lead with the ladies provide soaring harmony. “To Hell With the Land” is perhaps my favourite Parks composition, and here Lewis reminds us that there remains causes for the home place being abandoned.
The originals were incredible performances, under heard perhaps, but powerful and deserving of a wider audience. Lewis and Kallick, by recording these in such a redoubtable manner, have provided opportunity for more people to become familiar with the music of Vern and Ray.
It has been said that there is nothing better than the sound of bluegrass when performed by friends. Laurie Lewis and Kathy Kallick—with their compatriots—have created a recording a long time in coming, one that certainly gives Vern Williams and Ray Parks their bluegrass due.
Country Standard Time ~ John Lupton
Vern Williams and Ray Park were both Arkansas natives, and like many young Southern men in the 1940s and 50s, they emigrated to California in search of better opportunities. Though raised only a few miles apart, they did not meet until joining the country and bluegrass scene in Stockton and within a few years had become the standard-bearers for the brand of uncompromising, hard-core traditional bluegrass of their Ozark homeland.
The list of young West Coast musicians who fell under their influence came to include the likes of Tony Rice, Chris Hillman and Herb Pedersen (who played banjo in their band for a time). Also playing close attention were Laurie Lewis and Kathy Kallick, a pair of female pioneers in what was still, in the ’70s, very much a male-dominated branch of music. After they co-founded the (mostly) all-female Good Ol’ Persons, Lewis broke off to form her own band, but the two remained close friends and collaborated for “Together” in 1991 (originally on the Kaleidoscope label, later on Rounder), which they dedicated to Williams and Park.
More than 20 years later they’re finally back with another tribute, this time featuring a dozen and a half of the songs that defined the Vern and Ray style. Park, a powerful guitarist and fiddler, passed away in 2002. Williams, who died in 2006, was a driving mandolin player whose voice, as Kallick aptly describes it in the liner notes, was “jaw-dropping, razor-sharp, laser-beam.” For the East Coasters who didn’t much get the chance to hear them in person or on record (there are relatively few recordings of them in circulation), it was something akin to hearing Joe Val or Bob Paisley, a brand of bluegrass some like to call “take no prisoners.” Lewis and Kallick both knew Vern and Ray well, and in their own way are well suited to taking on this kind of material. Both have voices that can be sweet, yet carry a razor’s edge of their own, and Lewis’s fiddling resonates with the same passion as Park’s.
Many of the tracks here are tunes that Williams and Park grew up with: “My Clinch Mountain Home” and “Cowboy Jack” (both from the Carter Family); “Oh Susanna” and “My Old Kentucky Home” (Stephen Foster); and traditional songs like “Black-Eyed Susie” and ‘Little Birdie.” Park, however, was also a startlingly good songwriter. “To Hell With The Land” is as intense as the way they performed it, and Lewis and Kallick maintain that intensity. “Montana Cowboy” may perhaps be his best-known song, having been covered by a variety of artists through the years. It’s a treat to have Lewis and Kallick recording together again, and this was clearly a labor of love.
CD Hotlist
Vern Williams and Ray Park were both from the Ozarks, but only met after each had moved to San Francisco in the 1950s. There they had a huge influence on the bluegrass and folk scene that burgeoned in the Bay Area throughout the 1960s and 1970s. Fans (and occasional sidepersons) included singer/guitarist Kathy Kallick and singer/fiddler Laurie Lewis, who both went on to successful careers of their own and have now collaborated on this wonderful tribute album. It’s straight-up, meat-and-potatoes bluegrass music of the kind that all too rarely features prominent female vocals; here Lewis and Kallick handle most lead and harmony singing, and they’re accompanied by such illustrious helpers as slide guitarist Sally Van Meter and mandolinist Tom Rozum. Truly great stuff.
Born in Arkansas before moving west and settling there, Vern Williams & Ray Park met in Stockton, California, in 1959. Williams, a mandolinist, and Park, a fiddler, went on to form a — the adjective is not employed loosely — legendary bluegrass band Vern & Ray. The group dealt in razor-sharp harmony singing and hard-driving Southern mountain sounds on a level of brilliance seldom encountered then or now. If you didn’t live on the West Coast, though, you needed to be a hard-core bluegrass devotee simply to have heard of them; their recordings were few and treasured. It didn’t help that they were far from bluegrass’ geographical center, even today located in the Southeast. The duo broke up in the early 1970s, though the Vern Williams Band continued to produce fierce and compelling ‘grass into the 1990s, including two Arhoolie collaborations with country pioneer and fellow Californian Rose Maddox.
As young musicians Laurie Lewis & Kathy Kallick, now hugely respected figures on California’s folk and bluegrass stages, knew Vern & Ray, and Lewis played bass for a time in Vern’s outfit. The first Lewis & Kallick collaboration, Together, released on Rounder in 1991, was dedicated to Vern & Ray. Their second, The Songs of Vern & Ray, is just what it says. Specifically, it’s 18 cuts chosen from Williams and Park’s stellar songbook. They were as adept at choosing songs as they were at delivering them.
I don’t hear every bluegrass album that’s released over the course of a year, and frankly, I’m pretty sure I don’t want to. After all, there are only so many hours in the day, and there’s plenty of other good rooted music meriting attention. But I do love bluegrass, and I’ve been hearing it most days of most of my life. So take my word for it: Songs just plain sparkles, and it’s as good as any bluegrass recording you’ll encounter in 2014. It’ll restore your faith in the genre if you’ve found it faltering lately as weak-in-the-knees pretenders have offended your sense of bluegrass’ truth and power. It’s also a return to form for Lewis & Kallick, whose most recent, singer-songwriterish solo efforts, while not bad, hardly represent their strongest work.
It bears noting that Vern & Ray’s music was, one might say, high-testosterone stuff, tough and intense enough to peel the paint off any building in its way. Lewis & Kallick do not attempt to imitate the originals. They don’t have to; their own approach is robust and confident enough to produce a music that is fully credible on its own terms. Sometimes the two recall a bluegrass-era Carter Family, and not just when they’re performing A.P. Carter’s “My Clinch Mountain Home,” though I suspect that the original Carters, if still around, would be thrilled at what’s been done to their song.
Stephen Foster may seem an unlikely source for bluegrass songs, but Vern & Ray managed to make “My Old Kentucky Home” seem as if actually from an old Kentucky home. Lewis & Kallick resurrect it with harmonies that will make you weep some more, though in a nice way. The album opens with a high-stepping version of “Oh! Susanna” that turns out to be a much better song than you may have remembered. Lewis & Kallick gallop through the range country of Ray’s celebratory “Montana Cowboy,” Vern & Ray’s one enduring contribution to the bluegrass repertoire (covered by Emmylou Harris among others), and cut through the heart of the Carters’ doleful “Cowboy Jack.”
In all of this, they have superior musical backing from a small ensemble featuring Lewis’s longtime musical partner Tom Rozum (mandolin) and Patrick Sauber (banjo) while Kallick plays guitar and Lewis fiddle and bass. Banjoist/guitarist Keith Little, once a member of the Vern Williams Band, joins them here and there, as does resophonic guitarist Sally Van Meter. Annie Staninec adds a second fiddle to the exquisite “Thinkin’ of Home,” a rare Park/Williams writing collaboration.
Tribute albums are sometimes — well, mostly — pointless exercises. Not this one, the product of love and sincerity, certainly, but more than that, of talents equal to the ones being celebrated.
For the Country Record, August 25, 2014
Laurie Lewis and Kathy Kallick got their start in the music business playing in the California bluegrass scene of the 1970s, and have been singing together just as long. Long critically acclaimed, the pair often played in the bands of legends Vern Williams and Ray Park, who formed much of what their descendants would try to emulate in the intervening years. Laurie and Kathy recorded their first duet album ‘Together’ of Vern & Ray songs, and now they’re back with a brand new collection, ‘Laurie & Kathy Sing The Songs of Vern & Ray’. Implanting themselves firmly back in their roots, the duo perfectly complement each other, interpreting the various tracks faithfully and sprightfully. One of the songs is ‘Montana Cowboy’, overtly twangy in these days of modern polish and digital editing techniques, but wonderfully so. Those looking for a window in the past with crystal clarity won’t be disappointed.
KCBL Radio ~ Al Shusterman
As a big fan of Vern & Ray, I couldn’t wait to put this project in my cd player. After playing your newest project “Sing The Songs of Vern & Ray” numerous times, I just had to tell you how much I loved this project. This dynamic project brought all of their music “back to life” again. The vocals both lead and harmony were “magical”. I was riveted to my cd player the entire time this project was playing. I even found myself singing along with you. On a scale of 1 to 10, this is definitely a 10! I can’t wait to share it with my listeners.
Brenda Hough, Bluegrass Breakdown (California Bluegrass Association newsletter), August, 2014
Sugar and spice, salt and pepper, Vern and Ray, Laurie and Kathy. Marvelous pairings of flavor and sound soar in this collaboration between Laurie Lewis and Kathy Kallick. Their last pairing on an album was over twenty years ago, and it unites two talented singers with some of the songs that propelled bluegrass into prominence in California… Laurie and Kathy have a marvelous vocal blend together and their love for the music of Vern and Ray shines through every note.
Farewell, Fair Ladies: American Roots by Women ~ Stephen D. Winick
Lots of discs have appeared in my box lately on which great women musicians take on tunes and songs stemming from the old-time tree. I thought I’d share my thoughts on some of those here.
I’ll start with Laurie Lewis and Kathy Kallick, who have sung and played together since they founded the California bluegrass band The Good Ol’ Persons back in the 1970s. They learned the craft of bluegrass from the acknowledged masters of the northern California scene, Vern Williams and Ray Park. Williams and Park’s careers presaged Lewis and Kallick’s important ways: both duos teamed up for a while to make some great music, then went their separate ways, reuniting only occasionally.
In the case of Kallick and Lewis, each fronts her own bluegrass band playing a mix of good old bluegrass numbers and self-penned songs, and they don’t often record together. So it’s a joy to hear them pay tribute to their late mentors on Laurie & Kathy Sing the Songs of Vern & Ray.
The disc’s material reflects the eclectic repertoire of Vern & Ray’s band, finding the sweet spot among traditional folk music, early country classics, and more modern compositions, with everything from Foster’s “Oh! Susanna” and “My Old Kentucky Home” to the Carter Family’s “Cowboy Jack” and “My Clinch Mountain Home,” and from folk tunes “Black-Eyed Susie” and “Flying Cloud” to Luther Riley’s “Bluegrass Style” and Ray Park’s “Thinkin’ of Home.” Themes of home and love, wandering and worrying, and God and prayer come up again and again, presenting the American experience crystallized in country music. Several songs stand out: Park’s “To Hell With the Land” is a riff on environmental degradation, all the more chilling for being forty years old, and his “Happy I’ll Be” is a simple gospel song that might just make you feel better.
“Down Among the Budded Roses” is an unusual love song known to Charlie Poole andWoody Guthrie, and given a plaintive reading by Lewis, and “Little Birdie” is a lively folksong that’s a perennial favorite in bluegrass. Both frontwomen are in great form, providing what Kallick calls the “razor-sharp laser-beam voices” that give traditional bluegrass its bite, as well as chunky guitar and fantastic lonesome fiddle, while bandmates Tom Rozum and Patrick Sauber fill out the ladies’ sparkling arrangements on banjo and mandolin. This is my favorite bluegrass album in years!
Andy Donelly and Roddy Campbell ~ Penguin Eggs Picks
An inspiration for numerous California-based bluegrass bands of the ’60’s and ’70’s. And it’s a refreshing and wonderful reminder how good Lewis and Kallick can be.
Glenn Herbert ~ Penguin Eggs
Vern Williams and Ray Park are a lesser known duo from the first generation of bluegrass, though in large part brought bluegrass to California. Williams is thought of as the father of California bluegrass, and his recordings and performances with Ray Park were, in a time before iTunes, the entry point for many players who then went on to define the California scene, one that would give rise to Clarence White, Roland White, and Tony Rice, among others.
This collection pays tribute in the purest sense, giving a tour of the songs and the arrangements that Vern and Ray made famous as well as standards that they interpreted, such as the Carter Family’s “My Clinch Mountain Home” and Stephen Foster’s “Oh Susanna.” On tracks like “To Hell with the Land” Lewis and Kallick capture the swagger of the music as well as the culture of the time when these songs were written.
If you’re a fan of both Lewis and Kallick, this is the album you’ve been waiting for—one that finds them together, applying themselves to the kind of material that they do best.
Randy Pitts ~ Randog’s Daily Pick 6/19/2014
Listening to Vern Williams and/or Ray Park live or recorded has always taken me back to a place in my heart and mind that only exists now in memory, when bluegrass was actually taking shape, when it related directly to the folks from whence it came, when it was palpably about the people, the times and the places in the songs, sung and played by people who were at one with the music…The music’s elements were more obvious in the singing and playing of pioneers like those two fellows from Arkansas, and closer to the ground; you could hear it in the cowboy ballads like “Cowboy Jack” and “Montana Cowboy”, in their heartfelt renditions of traditional stuff like “Little Birdie”, “Down Among The Budded Roses”, and “Field Of Flowers”, Vern’s unique interpretations of Stephen Foster compositions, their versions of Carter Family classics, and Vern and Ray’s own “hits”, songs like “Cabin On A Mountain” ,”Happy I’ll Be”, and “How Many Times” (all of which are here).Laurie and Kathy listened closely and learned their lessons well from Vern and Ray, and the evidence is here in abundance. I expected a lot from this album, and I’m not in the least disappointed. Both Laurie and Kathy have gone on from their early days as founding members of the–I think we can safely say now-“progressive”- Good Ol’ Persons- to their own fully formed and highly distinctive vocal, instrumental, and compositional voices…but there is always more than a little of that hard charging, emotive, no frills approach of Vern and Ray in everything they do, individually or together…and this album is a fitting testament to Vern and Ray, but it’s also evidence of how much those two, without even trying, influenced the full flowering of northern California bluegrass, through Laurie, Kathy, and other early highly influential players and singers of northern California–Herb Pedersen, Butch Waller, and Ed Neff come to mind…as well, of course, as Vern’s son Delbert and Ray’s sons Cary and Larry. Abetted by Tom Rozum on mandolin(playing this traditional stuff to a fare the well), Patrick Sauber on banjo, Laurie on fiddle and bass, Kathy on guitar, with additional help from another northernCalifornia great on dobro, Sally Van Meter, Annie Staninec, and Vern and Ray compadre from days of yore Keith Little… check out his, LL’s and KK’s version of the great Vern & Ray classic “The Touch Of God’s Hand”, which closes the album. Great album, destined to be a benchmark for years to come, if I’m any judge.
Claire Levine, Portland, OR 6/20/14
This is a shamelessly gushing and adoring mini-review of the new CD “Laurie & Kathy Sing the Songs of Vern &.Ray.”
I can write this on FB but probably never would tell them directly: These two remarkable women have probably inspired me more than anyone else in bluegrass (excepting Murphy, of course, but that’s a whole different story).
Back when I got serious about learning, there was Kathy Kallick and there was Laurie Lewis. (Those of us on the West Coast didn’t learn about Lynn Morris and Claire Lynch until years later.)
Kathy & Laurie.
They sang. They wrote. They fronted bands. They were personable and funny and gutsy and honest and lovely. And, in a way, they belonged to us – women in our 30s and 40s who loved bluegrass but who didn’t see how we could possibly fit in.
When they recorded their “Together” CD, every woman bg-er I knew learned to sing Little Annie, and we all wished for a singing partner who made harmonies sound as easy as breathing.
And for the last 20 years, they’ve done remarkable work on their own and with others. They’ve written tear jerkers and hilarious songs and kids’ music and bird tributes. Laurie has entertained in an amazingly diverse collection of ensembles, including her band the Right Hands; as a duo with Tom Rozum; and with the next generation of super-talented acoustic musicians. The CDs from Kathy’s band consistently stay in the top of the bluegrass charts for months and months.
So, OK, back to the CD, right?
It’s just stunning. From the first notes of Oh! Susanna you know it’s going to be a doozy. Their voices are as powerful and precise as when I first heard them: perhaps even more so. They are such masters of their voices. We know they are as versatile in their vocal stylings as they are in their songwriting. But it’s still surprising how well they have nailed the clean intensity of the genre they way they learned it from their early mentors, Vern & Ray.
Of course, their back-up musicians are impeccable and, well, exciting. It’s a CD full of joy.But maybe what I love the best is the cover photo.
They are more than 25 years older than when I first heard them. And they are more beautiful than ever. And they clearly love each other.
OK, so for me it’s obviously not all about the music. It’s so much about enduring friendships and about being able to go off in all directions and know you really can go home again. It’s about creating new models of beauty and creativity and how to be graceful and gracious under all circumstances.
Their liner notes are full of gratitude. They point me to my own gratitude toward the music and how it has led me to long-standing friendship and a greater sense of community than I ever thought I could experience. And I’m particularly grateful to Laurie & Kathy, for so much.
But really, go buy the CD, even if it’s just for the music. Because that’s certainly enough.