Search - Laurel Canyon Ramblers :: Rambler's Blues

When the Desert Rose Band finally called it quits, banjoist Herb Pedersen and bassist Bill Bryson decided to return to their first love, bluegrass. They recruited their old pals, guitarist Billy Ray Lathum and mandolinist Kenny Blackwell, and named their new band the Laurel Canyon Ramblers, after the most Applachian-sounding place-name in L.A. The new group's debut album, Rambler's Blues, preserves the songwriting craft and spirited rhythms of the Desert Rose Band but does so in the context of a drummer-less bluegrass quartet. In fact, the Laurel Canyon Ramblers remake "Love Reunited," a Top 10 country hit for the Desert Rose Band in '87, as an uptempo bluegrass number. The pop hook is given new life by the mandolin rhythm, the fiddle fills (by guest Byron Berline), and the vocal harmonies. Chris Hillman wrote that song and most of the other Desert Rose material, leaving Pedersen and Bryson with precious few chances to showcase their own material. Their five contributions to Rambler's Blues indicate that they, too, know how to pen a catchy country-pop song and their emergence as strong songwriters is the best thing about the Laurel Canyon Ramblers. Pedersen's title tune is a contagious, uptempo ode to restlessness, and Bryson's "Crossroads Bar" is a twangy warning about the temptations of the honky-tonk life. The album is filled out by a pair of Osborne Brothers chestnuts and three bluegrass-gospel hymns. --Geoffrey Himes