I Wonder Where You Are Tonight

Performer: Del McCoury
Producer: Chris Strachwitz; Tracy Schwarz
Distributor: E1 Distribution (USA)

Notes: Personnel: Del McCoury (vocals, guitar); Bill Emerson (vocals, banjo); Wayne Yates (vocals, mandolin); Billy Baker (vocals, fiddle); Tommy Neal, Dewey Renfro (bass). Recorded in Glen Rock, Pennsylvania on December 9 & 10, 1967. Includes liner notes by Tracy Schwarz and Chris Strachwitz. McCoury's first album as a bandleader was recorded in two days in December 1967. Although he didn't have a regular band at the time, he was backed by a solid quartet (though five other musicians appear in all, with Tommy Neal and Dewey Renfro alternating on bass), three of them capable background singers as well. McCoury's vocals had the high, lonesome sound for which bluegrass is esteemed, but put over with more easygoing, engaging friendliness than some slicker, flashier singers and players. The songs were a well-chosen mix of traditional standards and songs by his one-time boss Bill Monroe; the Monroe-Lester Flatt collaboration "Sweetheart You Done Me Wrong"; Johnny Bond; Kitty Wells; Jimmie Rodgers; and, on just one tune (the ballad "Dreams," one of the more pensive heartfelt numbers), McCoury himself. According to Chris Strachwitz's liner notes, the 2002 CD reissue discards the compression heard on the stereo mix of the original LP and more accurately reflects the music as it was originally recorded. ~ Richie Unterberger

Singer/mandolinist Del McCoury's career had the most auspicious beginning a bluegrass musician can hope for; in the mid-1960s he was a member of Bill Monroe's Bluegrass Boys. He kicked off his solo career a couple of years later, and by the '70s he had found a middle ground between bluegrass traditionalism and the open-minded "newgrass" approach, becoming a highly influential artist in the process. In the '80s, McCoury truly codified his style, forming a tight band that included his sons Ronnie and Rob. THE MOUNTAIN, their 1999 collaboration with Steve Earle, raised the band's profile even further, endearing them to non-country audiences and neatly dovetailing with the early-2000s O BROTHER, WHERE ART THOU?-inspired bluegrass resurgence.

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