18 February : Uncle Charlie and His Dog Teddy

I’ve always had a soft spot for the Nitty Gritty Dirt Band, ever since I heard Dismal Swamp on Gutbucket years ago. And in 1984, on a road trip in Ontario and Michigan, Long Hard Road (The Sharecropper’s Dream) was a constant on the radio. I’ve only ever had one of their albums though, and I sold that a long time ago. So when Uncle Charlie and His Dog Teddy cropped up as a February 1970 release, and assorted online reviews praised it highly, I thought it right to include it here.

The music on the album sits on the border between country and bluegrass but with a strong commercial streak and forays into rock instrumentation. Several songs sound like they were designed to be singles (and their pedestrian version of Jerry Jeff Walker’s Mister Bojangles was a huge hit for them), one or two are for album fans.

I know these things are subjective, but, contrary to online opinions, I do not hear a masterpiece here, or anything like one. By the time they bemoaned ‘the emptiness of another day’ during Randy Newman’s Livin’ Without You I was playing the world’s smallest fiddle.

For me, the two best things on it are both covers of Mike Nesmith songs: Son of Shelly’s Blues Again and Propinquity. I also like a short instrumental, Uncle Charlie, that’s there almost as a throwaway. The rest are very well played, but didn’t do anything for me, and occasionally were just annoying. A version of Buddy Holly’s Rave On is terrible.

I said a couple of posts ago that you can’t have the blues if you don’t have soul. The same is true for music with ambitions to be rootsy; you can always tell the real deal, and this ain’t it.

Spotify to see if you disagree with me.