DREGS OF THE EARTH

Wow, Steve Morse is such a versatile and aggressive musician as well!! His creature- "Dixie Dreggs"- fits perfectly into his stunning style.This is art rock, enriched with incredible guitar excursions into the US country music, performed skilfully and also emotionally supported by a fine violin! Music should be represented by albums like these...because it's simple from the point of view of its compositions, but also tinged with a lot of music colours. I remember his experience with Kansas, but I think of the incredible personal style of Morse here, and I think it's better in this kind of music approach!!

Recommended!!

I purchase this album fiew days ago, curious of what is on this album, after the good album What if from '78. I have only these two albums, and What if is much better then this one. With some influences from country (in fact more then on What if) made this album to be only 3 stars to me. forte track, all have the same characteristics so i can't choose one. After all not a bad album - not a fantastic album either. Fans of more hard side of jazz might like this one, but i recommend What if because is the best Dixie Dregs album.

If you were a Dixie Dregs fan in nineteen eighty, by this time you knew just what to expect from a new album of theirs. Beautiful, majestic ballads, southern flavored rockers, a blazing bluegrass romp, at least on smokin' prog tune, and maybe a little classical thrown in. This one does not disappoint. For their first major label release (they had just switched to Arista records after starting out on Capricorn) the Dregs created what may have been their finest album yet.

The absolute highlight here is "I'm Freaking Out", which starts with a jazzy jam, and turns into a symphonic prog tour de force. It's easily up there with the best the Dregs have ever recorded.

The rest of the album is your usual extremely listenable and inventive Dregs fare. The bluegrass selection, "Pride O' The Farm" is good, but slightly slower than their usual bluegrass fare. They fixed that in concerts, where they sped the song up to jaw dropping speeds.

This is a definite must for any Dregs fan.

Mark Parrish, steps down on keyboards and T Lavitz steps in. The replacement of Mark by T was kind of the equivalent of Howe replacing Banks in Yes. The original person holding down that seat wasn't bad, it's just that the new guy was a better fit.

The Dixie Dregs at this point had kind of developed and almost cliché style of songs at this point for their studio albums. You'd have a proggy bluegrass bit, some rockers, something symphonic prog, something even more classical styled. Really not a bad rut for a band to get stuck in.

Normally I have a hard time writing about instrumental albums but this one is easy. The styles are what really make it so. Here's a track by track:

Road Expense: a rocking opening tune. The title is of course a reference to touring.

Pride O' the Farm: the obligatory proggy bluegrass track. Band makes farm noises at the end. If you don't like or think you like bluegrass. Dregs songs like this might change your mind. So if you need something to change your mind?

Twiggs Approved: a more laid back kind of rocker. Twiggs was their road manager and died in a skydiving accident, which is ironic as their first studio album had the band jumping out of an airplane.

Hereafter: I guess this one fits in more with symphonic prog. One of their obligatory mellow tracks.

The Great Spectacular: an update to a song they put on their college demo album. I find it hard to pigeonhole this one other than it is a nice prog instrumental.

Broad Street Strut: boogie baby. If instrumentals were making hits in those days, who knows?

I'm Freaking Out: if you are a prog rock fan and you don't like this track, there's something wrong with you. Has what I consider to be one of Andy West's coolest bass lines. A little over nine minutes of a trip.

Old World: really good acoustic wrap up to the album. This would be their obligatory classical style piece for this album.