Recordings on the internet

Thanks to Cathal Cusack for this link to an audio recording of two legendary guitarists, Clarence White and Tony Rice, duetting on 'New River train'. The date is presumably c.1970, give or take a couple of years - can anyone be more accurate? The track comes from the mp3 section of the Clarence White Forum, where there are also video clips and other material relating to White, who can be considered the first player to apply Doc Watson-style flatpicking to the bluegrass band context.

[Update 16 Aug.: see John Lawless's review on the original Bluegrass Blog of the Tony Rice biography Still inside.]

Thanks also to Sharon Loughrin for this link to a video from the Bluegrass on the Tube archives, of a Canadian band, The Bills, singing 'The old blue bridge'. NB: although the harmony singing that opens the number is close and powerful and the whole track is good to hear and would work well in bluegrass style and tempo, the overall sound is closer to cajun music. There is no banjo; there is an accordion.* And though Bill Monroe, the Stanley Brothers, the Del McCoury Band, and Hazel Dickens are among the thirty-five influences listed on the Bills' MySpace site, the band call themselves a 'folk' or 'world music' group and don't use the B-word there or on their website.

*Henk Bloupot of the Stroatklinkers (from the Groningen province of the northern Netherlands) uses the accordion well in a bluegrass-band context.