Best known amongst Americana fans for the two albums he released with Gene Clark in the late 1960s (The Fantastic Expedition of Dillard & Clark and Through the Morning, Through the Night) Doug Dillard was an exemplary banjo player who had first found fame of sorts with his brother Rodney in The Dillards. Tagged as hillbillies via TV shows such as The Andy Griffith (where they regularly appeared, under the name of “The Darlings”) Doug Dillard was drawn to the newer sounds coming out of Los Angeles leading to his leaving the band and hooking up with Clark. Their first album is now considered to be one of the earliest country rock albums but when Clark dissolved the union Dillard decided to carry on with what was left of the band, utilising the “expedition” part of that first album.
The Doug Dillard Expedition proved to be a short lived affair but this disc, recorded when they played support to Kay Starr in Las Vegas (billed only as “The Expedition”) is a unique time capsule, capturing them in their prime. Retaining the brilliant fiddler Byron Berline from the Gene Clark band, Dillard had recruited Roger Bush on double bass and Billy Ray Latham on guitar, mandolin and banjo and the quartet are pretty much a perfect bluegrass and old time band on the strength of these recordings. Strangely, there’s no evidence of Dillard’s dalliance with Clark aside from a frantic delivery of Roll In My Sweet Baby’s Arms, a song which appeared on their second album. Instead we get a heady (and well recorded, given its vintage) set of speedball instrumentals and well harmonised songs, all played with no reference to the then burgeoning country rock scene. This is much more akin to the vintage music being revived at the time by The Nitty Gritty Dirt Band on their groundbreaking Will The Circle Be Unbroken triple album.
Anyhow, there’s so much to enjoy here as they rip through their set. Most of the songs and tunes will be familiar to anyone acquainted with the bluegrass and country canon – Uncle Pen, Don’t Let Your Deal Go Down, Take A Whiff On Me and Cumberland Gap all get an outing – and at times the playing is quite incendiary. Berline’s fiddle is on fire on Orange Blossom Special while Dillard’s banjo playing on Dear Old Dixie has to heard to be believed. When they weigh into gospel as on Wicked Paths Of Sin their harmonies are quite excellent and by the time the set ends with Berline again a whirling dervish on fiddle on Lee Highway Blues, as a listener you might be quite exhausted. If at all you are interested in that intersection of tradition and new in the early days of country rock then you might want to invest in this fine recording.
We haven’t got a clip from the album to share but here’s a short video from around the time the album was recorded.