Goose Creek Symphony - Welcome to Goose Creek

A shorter entry this time. I figured since I've done a couple entries featuring Goose Creek Symphony, I didn't need to rehash a lot of stuff and repeat myself.

After I'd streamed the band's debut, I was intrigued by the alchemy of hippy dippy rock and roots, so I set out to find their albums, and in short order I'd picked up the four records they released in the '70s. I didn't listen to them in chronological order. I initially skipped this one in favour of hearing Words of Earnest because that one had "Mercedes Benz" and "Guitars Pickin', Fiddles Playin'," the song my aunt told me about.

I was flipping through my records, and I realized I'd not listened to all of my Goose Creek Symphony albums. I was in the mood for something a little different, and I had an image in my head about what Welcome to Goose Creek would sound like, and ... I ... was ... wrong.

It wasn't a bad surprise at all ... just not what I was expecting. The album was a ripsnortin' hootenanny that was more roots and bluegrass with a little rock and roll thrown in here and there, but mostly this was a bluegrass album. The lone song that hearkened to their debut was the first cut on the second side, "The Corn Won't Grow, So Rock and Roll," and it's a scorcher and clocks in at over eight minutes, and then things settle down back into the bluegrass vein. Sadly the album I found didn't have any credits, but it looks like Charles Gearheart wrote a good chunk of the music, with Paul Howard Spradlin writing a couple.

It's still a lot of fun, and there are still enough hints of rock and roll to make this a little different than a typical bluegrass album.

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