Roanoke Times
                 Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.

DATE: SATURDAY, March 27, 1993                   TAG: 9303270103
SECTION: EXTRA                    PAGE: B7   EDITION: METRO 
SOURCE: Seth Williamson
DATELINE:                                 LENGTH: Medium

BLUEGRASS

Forget this one unless you're the kind of Dillards fanatic who absolutely has to own every release, good or bad (like this reviewer, for example). The 12 mediocre songs are done so listlessly that it sounds like Rodney Dillard, Dean Webb and Steve Cooley mailed in their parts.

The style here is anonymous electric studio country with a polite bluegrass frosting of mandolin and banjo. There's not a single stand-out among the dozen forgettable songs, a pathetic circumstance for a band that once had three or four certifiable classics per side, album after album. Rodney, Dean and Steve are still world-class musicians. But until they find some material worthy of their talents, they should assiduously avoid setting foot inside a recording studio.

If you got burned by "Take Me Along for the Ride," cure your depression with "The Dillards: There is a TIME (1963-1970)" (Vanguard).

It's an hour and five minutes of the Dillards' best, from "Back Porch Bluegrass," "Live!!! Almost!!!" "Pickin' and Fiddlin'," and the seminal electric bluegrass/pop classics "Wheatstraw Suite" and "Copperfields."

Each one of these albums deserves a complete reissue on its own, but until that blessed moment arrives, this CD will help you recall why the folk music world went nuts over the Dillards in the '60s. And Neil Rosenberg's perceptive notes are a miniature history of the group that was the example for Crosby, Stills and Nash, the Byrds, the Flying Burrito Brothers and other better known country-influenced bands. This one is a must-have for Dillards fanatics and others as well.