The Dirt Band evidently saw Stars & Stripes Forever as an opportunity to sum up and celebrate the group's successes of the last several years, because the double album is constructed as an aural magazine, complete with interviews, comedy bits and a special section on bluegrass. Interspersed with these documents is a live album containing performances of many Dirt Band hits and favorites ("Mr. Bojangles," "Jambalaya" and "Buy for Me the Rain"). It was a worthy idea, but most of the components don't work: The interviews are self-conscious and perfunctory, the comedy absolutely dreadful and most of the live performances bland. The side of bluegrass, with fiddler Vassar Clements sitting in, is at least relatively lively. (RS 168)

BUD SCOPPA