Muleskinner: Muleskinner: A Potpourri Of Bluegrass Jam : Music Reviews : Rolling Stone

Album Reviews

Muleskinner's sole studio recording endures as a touchstone for bluegrass nuts and fans of the countrified Byrds. Originally titled Muleskinner, this 1972 album features stalwarts Bill Keith on banjo and David Grisman on mandolin, but former Byrds guitarist Clarence White (one of Jimi Hendrix's favorite players) is the disc's molten core. His spiraling electric lines transform "Muleskinner Blues" into cosmic country & western. The lovelorn "Runways of the Moon" transcends the usual parameters of a front-porch shuffle with a double-helix drone of fiddle and pedal steel and heart-melting four-part-harmony vocals. White was fatally struck by a car a year later, but this jam has become an essential bluegrass document.

PETER RELIC
(RS 944, March 18, 2004)