These Old Pictures
A product of Virginia's bluegrass-drenched Carroll County, King is a powerful singer in the "high and lonesome" style. Despite brief stints with the Lundy Brothers and the Stanley Brothers, King has remained an elusive figure on the margins of the bluegrass scene. His considerable talent is showcased convincingly, however, on this album, which finds him backed by four-fifths of the Johnson Mountain Boys' 1988 line-up. Maryland's classic pickers are as refined and virtuosic as ever, and they provide the perfect settings for King's meditations on homesickness, lost love and death. When the Johnson Mountain Boys' Dudley Connell brings his high tenor to several duets with King, the effect is thrilling.--Geoffrey Himes