The Lindner Brothers: With Friends Like These
Philo Records (Fretless FR151 [vinyl]) 1981

-AVAILABLE-  on CD (See Ordering Info)



There are some wonderful motels here in Rhode Island. And then there are some like this-for just a few dollars less they'll set you up Plowboy-style, with cuddly microscopic bedfellows and blankets dating from the Inquisition. This morning, as I contemplate the new album, Midnite Plowboys are sprawled about the twi-lit room like beached whales. Brother Banjo's tee shirt is draped over his face, so he looks like he ought to have a tag fastened to his swollen toe. Big Al, as usual, has staked out the best facilities ("Honest, fellers, I have a bad back") and Jon Glik, our guest on this tour, drew the worst. If Jon's fans could see him now, with that adorable fly on his cheek.

But they will get to hear him on our "Friends" record, and that's rare enough. Jon is one of the secrets of the Maryland bluegrass scene, a cat that should be long since out of the bag. I worked with Jon for three years when we were two of Frank Wakefield's Good Old Boys, and his music, sweet and bluesy and sometimes outrageous, has taken me on a guided tour of my own feelings. Dan and I wanted to share Jon with you.

Vermont has some secrets of its own, and one is ex-Pine Boy, sometime Plowboy, Danny Mahoney, New England's premier dobro player. His stuff is bluegrass-I don't care if he was born with earmuffs on-but his style is all his own, and his backup work is superb. Among our other Friends is bass man Sam Blagden, Ex-Plowboy, ex-Good Old Boy and Honorary Fab (as in Fabulous Lindner Brothers-not quite as prestigious an award, perhaps, as Honorary Kentucky Colonel, but the initiation ceremony was top notch). Mike Ziegler is a banjo picker, for these proceedings stripped of his banjo and ordered to "stand there and sing." A perpetual student and dabbler in the sciences, Mike's idol is Bob Siggins. Mike and I played music together years ago in California with Country Granola and Stoney Lonesome. Mainly, we rode around in his Opel singing duets.

Joining us on a couple of cuts are our extra-special friends, Jaye and Nancy. This is what happens when talented women get involved with country music stars like the Lindner Brothers. When there's all that good music at home, why are we dodging bedsprings in Rhode Island?

Our oldest friend, Eleanor Lindner, does not sing or play on this record, and "mother songs" are seldom heard in bluegrass these days. But she is on the album in a thousand ways. And so is Mike Couture, our engineer, whose greatest virtue besides skill is patience, as he put up with the Lindner Brothers and their little friends flitting around his studio like five-year-olds.

Speaking of friends, I wonder how those little mattress critters are doing without me. Pardon me whilst I provide them with rheum service.

Will Lindner
August, 1980

  1. Oat Mountain
    (Eric Lindner)
  2. Widow's Walk
    (Dan Lindner)
  3. Blue Sea Blues
    (Eric Lindner)
  4. You Better Say Goodbye
    (Dan Lindner)
  5. Welcome to Mars
    (Dan Lindner)
  6. The Holy Hills of Heaven
    (Traditional)
  7. Sweet Loralee
    (Dan Lindner)
  8. Rumney's Rum
    (Jon Glik)
  9. Walk in the Starlight
    (Dan Lindner)
  10. Rain on Me
    (Eric Lindner)
  11. Ocracoke
    (Eric Lindner)
  12. Rack and Ruin
    (Dan Lindner)
All songs Pleiades Music/BMI

Dan Lindner - banjo, guitar, tiple, vocals
Willy Lindner - mandolin, guitar, vocals
Friends:
Sam Blagden - bass (tenor vocal on "Rack and Ruin")
Jon Glik - fiddle (lead guitar on "Holy Hills")
Jaye Lindner - vocals
Dan Mahoney - dobro
Nancy Mosher - vocals
Mike Ziegler - vocals
- - -
Engineering - Michael Couture
Photography - Pete Tourin
Design - The Very Graphic! Design Co.
Special Assistance - Pete and Tina Tourin
Special Thanks to Jack Donovan and Tom Beardsley

Recorded at Earth Audio Techniques in North Ferrisburg, Vermont.
Fretless Records is a division of Philo(r) Records, Inc., N. Ferrisburg, VT. All rights reserved.
(c)1981 Philo(r) Records, Inc.

Next album in discography: High Time (1977)

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