Lonesome River Band revisits an old comic tune on “Pretty Little Widow.” The song first appeared in 1928 through Gid Tanner and His Skillet Lickers. However, this version traces more directly to Stringbean’s performance of the tune on The Porter Wagoner Show in the 1960s.
“Jesse Smathers brought this song to our attention from a video of Stringbean on the Porter Wagoner show from the 1960s,” stated bandleader and banjo player Sammy Shelor. “We all love Stringbean’s music, and it was a song I had not heard before. He was backed by Porter’s country band and the electric guitar had a great part in the song. So it was an obvious choice of tunes for this project; Rod Riley on the Tele captures the vintage sound of that era of country music.”
Shelor opens the track by translating Stringbean’s clawhammer approach into bluegrass banjo. From there, the band keeps the pace high as Smathers delivers the vocal with a lively, plainspoken edge. Meanwhile, mandolin player Adam Miller, fiddler Mike Hartgrove, guitarist Rod Riley, and Shelor trade sharp, energetic passages between verses.
Author: World Music Central News Room
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