Banging & Sawing

As melodic clawhammer banjo players go, Bob Carlin is certainly one of the most compulsive; it's hard to think of another banjoist who goes to such pains to make sure he plays every note in the melody. Sometimes groove gets sacrificed in the pursuit of that vision, and when you're playing with a fiddler you need to be able to groove — as neat as melodic-style banjo is, something sounds wrong if the banjo completely abdicates its percussive function. But Carlin does usually have fun, and he sounds like he's having a blast on this generously augmented reissue of his 1985 solo album. Most of the tracks are just banjo and fiddle, though a few feature guitarists as well (including the redoubtable Norman Blake). That leads to a certain sameness of texture, a sameness that Carlin and John Hartford overcame on their duo album, The Fun of Open Discussion, with sheer humor and good-naturedness; here that same personality comes through on tracks like "Big Footed Man in the Sandy Lot" and "Far in the Mountain," but on others, he settles for mere virtuosity. Recommended with reservations.