Best of New Grass Revival
Virtuoso instrumental insurgents, the NGR brought the  counterculture into bluegrass festivals during the '70s, and altered  the music forever with daring, extended, jazz-influenced jams. Over two  decades the band went through various line-up changes, and this  generous single-disc retrospective concentrates on the classic '80s  unit, featuring founder Sam Bush on fiddle and mandolin, John Cowan on  bass and vocals, Bela Fleck on banjo, and Pat Flynn on guitar and  vocals. The song selection itself tells much about the band: Standards  give way to originals from Flynn and producer Wendy Waldman, as well as  John Hiatt and the Beatles ("I'm Down").--Roy Francis Kasten