By: Nitty Gritty Dirt Band - Dirt Silver and Gold (CD, Eng Rmst)

Dirt, Silver & Gold started life as a daunting triple-LP compilation in 1976, summing up the highlights of the group's first decade, and later found a second life of sorts on CD from One Way Records. Anyone who owns One-Way Records' reissue of Dirt, Silver & Gold should take a good, long look at this reissue from BGO, which not only features vastly superior sound on its 37 songs -- each remastered from what sounds like the original master tape, recompiled for this release and featuring crisp, loud sound -- but also corrects the one major flaw in the One-Way release -- the absence of any annotation. This slipcased, narrow double-CD set carries us from the early days of the Dirt Band as a novelty act to their blossoming as a folk-bluegrass-blues hybrid and their plunge into country music; John Tobler's excellent notes provide a detailed history covering every step of their development from the mid-1960s through the early 1990s, offering a quick update to 2003 and their current lineup. ~ Bruce Eder