Bill Malone & Rod Moag – Remember Me

Yes, that Bill Malone — the one who wrote the epochal Country Music, USA. Now retired and ensconced in Madison, Wisconsin, Malone and Texas musician-scholar Rod Moag team up for a tribute to the Bailes Brothers, an undeservedly little-known postwar hillbilly music duo that was a favorite of Malone from his childhood days. In settings that range from the classic guitar-mandolin “brother duet” to full-band bluegrass to earthy honky-tonk, Malone & Moag run through nineteen of the Bailes’ best-known songs. The list of titles alone — including “Oh So Many Years”, “Give Mother My Crown”, “As Long As I Live”, “Dust On The Bible” and “I Want To Be Loved” — makes a strong case for the Bailes’ importance. “I am under no illusion that as a singer I could ever recreate the passionate intensity heard in their voices,” Malone writes in the liner notes, but in fact he and Moag do a perfectly creditable job, and the love and enthusiasm they brought to the project makes it a thoroughly enjoyable collection.