**1/2 The Drovers Old Time Medicine Show
SUNDAY AT PRATER'S CREEK
(Fundamental)
This bluegrass
outfit has a punky attitude, a charmingly
sloppy and naive vision of the verities of old mountain music. Imagine
Jonathan Richman
fronting an acoustic band doing
Bill Monroe
covers. Their songwriting
is nothing special, and their vocals are workmanlike, but the passion and
sincerity these Carolina pickers communicate lift them high above most
countrified-punk fusions. I could do without their tasteless
moonshine jokes;
still, you have to be grateful for any album that features a bluegrass anthem
to baseball and a hymn to Jesus back to back.
-- Norman Weinstein
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