HARDRIVE - CD Henry Lawson's Blues
For USA and Canadian customers: Henry Lawson's Blues is now available online
through County Sales
And in Australia through Gum Tree Music.
Hardrive by name and Hardrive by nature, this is a superb collection of great songs and tunes performed by a band of top bluegrass pickers and singers.Most of the tracks are originals and the instrumentals are both energetic and uncompromising. A great album all through.Trev Warner, Capital Country News
WINNER - 2003 ALBUM OF THE YEAR, Victorian & National Country Music Awards
Henry Lawson's Blues was awarded the title of Album of the Year at the 2003 Victorian and National Country Music Awards.
For the first time, a traditional acoustic bluegrass band beat 530 other albums to win the title.
The
CD features thirteen original tracks and represents an intensive effort by
the band to define their own sound within the genre of traditional bluegrass. Inspired
by Bill Monroe's traditional style, the songs on the album reflect the roots
of bluegrass, but include shadows of influence from other leading traditional
players such as Frank Wakefield, Buzz Busby, Jimmy Martin and Del McCoury.
The album showcases the musical talent of mandolin player Nick Dear, and the practiced hand of Pete Sweatman in lyrics and songwriting. Lyrics on the album reflect the old faithful subjects of bluegrass - death, trains, old folks and infidelity. Lachlan Dear continues to develop as one of the finest bass players in Australian bluegrass, while old-hand Mick Harrison imbues the music with the bluesy notes of JD Crowe. The band introduces fiddle player Lachlan Davidson on the album - a young man who has stepped up to the challenge of playing with Hardrive with great maturity, and who is moonlighting with Lee Kernaghan.
Mandolin
player Nick Dear exercised the band's capabilities in constructing the album. According
to Nick, Hank Williams once said there was no good song that was not written
within fifteen minutes.
Armed with this information, the band sat through several intensive songwriting sessions and completed most of the tunes on the album within Hank's mandatory fifteen minutes. After further refinement of lyrics and tunes, the album was recorded at Redwood Studios in Ballarat in March 2002.
Reviews
Canberra Times "Times Out" supplement, 24 October 2002
CD of the Week - Frank Cassidy
The second offering from Melbourne bluegrass outfit Hardrive, Henry Lawson's Blues , is a unique fusing of the bluegrass art with Australian heart, driving local themes through traditional bluegrass hoops and strumming up a winner.
Billing themselves Australia's most traditional bluegrass band, this album shows Hardrive to also be among the most creative. Half the 15 tracks are instrumental, the rest featuring what lead singers Pete Sweatman and Nick Dear call their "'high lonesome" vocals.
Thirteen tracks are new and plumb the creative depths of a Studebaker handbrake in Hillhanger Breakdown, the southern folk festival scene in Victoria Stomp, and one of Australia's most legendary mountain ranges in the album's best track The Great Divide.
From a collection that boasts variety the sharpest execution and finger pickin' good, clean sound, the stand out tracks are Janet's Waltz, Crossing the Daintree and both covers, Here Today and Gone Tomorrow and Who's Red Wagon.
Regular visitors to the National Folk Festival, the band launched its first CD Driven there in 2000 - Hardrive's music is already known in Canberra and Henry Lawson's Blues won't do its popularity any harm at all.
As good as you'll hear anywhere. Recommended.
Capital Country News, December 2002 issue - Trev Warner
Henry Lawson's Blues, Independent
Hardrive is a Victorian-based bluegrass band very much in the mould of the Johnson Mountain Boys, and their latest CD showcases the traditional style and delivery that has become their trade mark. The band members are Nick Dear (mandolin, fiddle and vocals), Lachlan Davidson (fiddle/vocals), Mick Harrison (banjo/vocals), Peter Sweatman (guitar/vocals) and Nick's son Lachlan Dear (bass/vocals). Hardrive by name and Hardrive by nature, this is a superb collection of great songs and tunes performed by a band of top bluegrass pickers and singers. Most of the tracks are originals and the instrumentals are both energetic and uncompromising. Best tracks are hard to single out as they are all good. But I like Janet's Waltz, Here Today and Gone Tomorrow, Away on a Mountain, Henry Lawson's Blues and The Great Divide. A great album all through.