Reviewed by Tony Cummings

The New Tradition, as has bean previously noted in this august journal (yerwhat?), are a superlative bluegrass team and any guitarist looking to see how lightning fast guitar picking can be is recommended to purchase a copy and be suitably awestruck. This instrumental set is full of joyful enthusiasm and back porch good times and the only thing that stops the 10 square rating is that Brentwood Music are still showing a woeful lack of imagination in the material of their country/bluegrass albums. Like Brentwood's anonymous 'Smoky Mountain' series (now long past its sell by date) 'Old Time Gospel Jamboree' is full of over familiar hymns ("What A Friend", "Rock Of Ages", "I See The Light", etc). Now no doubt some Brentwood exec could argue that the whole idea of their bluegrass albums is to appeal to latent 'old time religion' religiosity in the American psyche, but to we Brits their milk-the-market strategy has become a tad boring. But returning to this set, you're never going to hear these hymnal warhorses picked with more passion than displayed here.

The opinions expressed in this article are not necessarily those held by Cross Rhythms. Any expressed views were accurate at the time of publishing but may or may not reflect the views of the individuals concerned at a later date.

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