Herb Pedersen
Album: Southwest + Sandman
Label: BGO
Tracks: 20
Website: http://herbpedersen.com/

Singer/banjo player/guitarist Herb Pedersen has been a constant figure on the bluegrass scene since he formed his first band, The Pine Valley Boys, in California, before moving to Nashville in 1961. Thereafter, he played with David Grisman's Smokey Grass Boys before replacing Doug Dillard in the Dillards in 1968 [when Doug left to team up with ex-Byrd Gene Clark in Dillard and Clark]. Herb even filled in for Earl Scruggs when the legendary banjo player had a hip operation !

For the first half of the 1970's Herb worked as a session musician with top artists such as Gram Parsons, Emmylou Harris, Linda Ronstadt, Kris Kristofferson and John Prine. He also toured with Jackson Browne.

In 1976 he signed with Epic Records as a solo artist and recorded a brace of solo albums "Southwest" and "Sandman" within a relatively short space of time. Both were produced by Mike Post, who is best known for his theme tunes for television shows including NYPD Blue, Hill Street Blues, The Rockford Files and Magnum PI.

Both albums have now been remastered and reissued on one cd by the excellent reissue label BGO, who, as ever, have done a sterling job of making long lost albums available once more.

Herb, as I have said, was highly in demand as a session musician and Epic decided to launch him as a solo artist. These two albums, whilst being most enjoyable seem to display a certain lack of identity, as if Epic and/or Mike Post cannot seem to decide whether to promote Herb as a country-rock artist in the mould of The Eagles /Gram Parsons or as a more middle-of-the-road crooner like David Gates of Bread.

"Southwest" gets off to a cracking start with a country-rock cover of "Paperback Writer", where The Beatles meet The Byrds. This track features two of my favourite musicians, Al Perkins on steel guitar and David Lindley on fiddle, and the interplay between them is superb. David Lindley also shines on lap steel and fiddle on Herb's excellent composition "Rock and Roll Cajun", which does what it says on the tin.

After these two excellent opening country-rock tracks, the mood changes to mellow for "If I Can Sing A Song", a Bread-like ballad, complete with symphonic strings [courtesy of Mr. Post ], delicate acoustic guitar[Chris Smith] and sweet vocals from Herb. Whilst very pleasant, it's a little too sweet for my taste.

"Our Baby's Gone" features backing vocals from Linda Ronstadt and Emmylou Harris and starts off promisingly enough until the strings take over. Producer Post goes the whole hog on the following track "Harvest Home", which features a full-blown orchestral arrangement, which seems a little incongruous as the song is about a "dustbowl farmer". Woody Guthrie meets Mantovani !

Rather more rootsy is "Jesus Once Again", which has a nice Southern gospel, swamprock feel to it courtesy of Larry Carlton's tasty George Harrison-like electric slide guitar.

I must admit to doing a double take when I heard Herb's song "Younger Days" as the start of it bears more than a passing resemblance for Paul Simon's "Still Crazy After All These Years", from the electric piano [Mike Post] to the jazzy guitar [the superb Larry Carlton of The Crusaders].

By way of total contrast, Herb takes us back to his roots on Bill Monroe's "Can't You Hear Me Calling". Here he is doing what he does best, singing and playing pure bluegrass. It's quite hard to reconcile the fact that this is the same singer as on the previous tracks, as he sounds completely different ! This excellent track features the classic line-up of banjo [Herb], fiddle [Ray Park], mandolin [Roy Dean Webb] and dobro [Josh Graves], it's just a pity that there isn't more of the same !

The final track on "Southwest" is Herb's greatest "hit" as a songwriter, namely the superb "Wait A Minute" which was made famous by bluegrass band The Seldom Scene. Despite the superfluous string arrangement by Mike Post, this is a fine version of the song, with Herb in good voice and Chris Smith providing some lovely steel guitar and tasty acoustic lead.

"Sandman" opens with the title track, which sounds like the best song the Eagles never put on their first album. Interestingly, the track features Linda Ronstadt on backing vocals and, of course, The Eagles were Linda's backing band back in 1971.

Herb doesn't quite equal that summit on the rest of the album, but there are some decent moments, particularly "Cora Is Gone"[Mac O'Dell's song which was made popular by Flatt and Scruggs ] and which features Glastonbury favourite Dolly Parton on harmony vocals as well as some nice dobro from Josh Graves. Incidentally, Mike Post went on to produce Dolly's "9 to 5" album in 1981.

There is also a haunting version of The Carter Family's "Fair And Tender Ladies" which is beautifully sung by Herb, with superb steel guitar from Chris Smith. And yes, Mike Post does add a string arrangement but fortunately it doesn't detract from the loveliness of the song.

All too often on "Sandman" 1970's production values tend to dominate ;after all, who needs syndrums and moog in bluegrass music?

"Sandman" concludes with the gospelly "If I Lose" which features a massed choir [including Linda Ronstadt, Dolly Parton, Johnny Rivers and Little Feat's Lowell George amongst others]. Lowell George also contributes a typically great slide guitar solo.

And so ends Herb's second solo album. So far, he has only released one more solo record, 1984's "Lonesome Feeling" but he remains active, playing with his former Desert Rose Band colleagues, Chris Hillman and John Jorgenson, with whom he enjoyed great success in the late '80's and early '90's.

In conclusion, I would say that the best tracks from "Southwest" and "Sandman" would make one great album, but as you get both albums for the price of one on this disc, it's worth getting it anyway.

Peter Cowley